What does a glass of foamy beer have to do with ocean waves breaking on the shore? A lot, according to Ken Melville, Ph.D., the new deputy director of Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO). Director Tony Haymet announced Melville’s appointment as deputy director in early November.
Melville’s research at SIO focuses on waves as they break at the surface of the ocean. He contrasts the carbonated bubbles in a beer glass with bubbles forced into solution by the action of breaking ocean waves. In a beer glass, small bubbles rise to the top of the glass and grow larger as they rise.
“In the case of a wave breaking at the surface, you’re injecting bubbles at the surface, and as they force down, the gas is forced into solution, and they [the bubbles] become smaller,” he said.
Melville’s experience as an ocean researcher will guide him as new deputy director of research at SIO. The native Australian conducted 11 years of research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and held research positions at the prestigious Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. In 1992, he accepted a position as a professor at SIO and proceeded to chair the graduate department from 1996 to 2001. All of his experiences as an oceanographer catapulted him into his current role as SIO Director Tony Haymet’s second-in-command.
Melville’s goals parallel those of Haymet. Immediate administrative priorities include sources of research funding, quality of research and research development at SIO. The duties and responsibilities associated with these priorities will be addressed in the coming months.
“The main issue is one of maintaining the excellence of the science that we do here,” he said, adding that “we’re very proud of our tradition,” referring to SIO’s longstanding reputation for research excellence.
In the coming months, Melville and an internal board will advise SIO about possible new scientific opportunities. The advisory board will look at opportunities for SIO based on the skills of current faculty and on skills of potential new hires. Overall, they want to invest their money on projects that will embody a highly productive research program ” one that will continue to contribute significantly to atmospheric and oceanographic research.
Also, this internal advisory board will examine the evaluation/promotion policy for SIO scientists and evaluate equipment and facilities required to maintain excellent scientific research. SIO must maintain and operate four research vessels at sea and the FLoating Instrument Platform (FLIP), a 355-foot spar buoy that provides a platform for ocean research. Although FLIP is owned by the U.S. Navy, it was developed by scientists at SIO ” therefore, SIO is responsible for its proper care and maintenance. These valuable resources require careful examination for their upkeep, maintenance and even occasional repair costs. Many of these vessels need to be renewed every decade, and their dates for renewal are quickly approaching.
Although these pending duties might be overwhelming to many people, Melville stated, “We get paid to do the things we thoroughly enjoy doing” in order to express his enthusiasm for the upcoming decisions/projects.
Of course, all his new administrative duties will augment his already rigorous research laboratory program.
“This is probably one of the greatest challenges of these administrative jobs in academia,” he said about the juggling act of both research and administrative responsibilities.
“Air””to-sea interactions” is how Melville summarizes his own research interests. In other words, his studies revolve around the interaction between the atmosphere and the ocean. Recently, he has focused on surface-wave processes and how these processes affect high winds and hurricanes.
“The issue of hurricane research has come to the forefront in the last 18 months or so,” he said in reference to Hurricane Katrina and other recent damaging storms. Funding for hurricane research has become more prevalent as various groups seek to understand and predict such horrific disasters.
“That is the sort of thing that a deputy director would have responsibility for,” he said. Based on his knowledge of hurricanes, he could find areas that scientists at SIO could contribute to in an effort to learn more about hurricanes.
“So this is an area where the institutional interests overlap with my research interests,” he said.
Melville and his research team travel to the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in the Gulf of Mexico. The narrowest part of the isthmus, near the Sierra Madre Mountains, provides a natural research laboratory of extremely high winds ” winds approaching hurricane speeds. These winds are also predictable four or five days ahead of time ” which means a scientist can design an experiment around specific parameters to be tested at a certain time and place.
The beer glass analogy has many applications to waves created in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. By studying these waves, Melville and his team hope to understand gas transfer and the mixing of temperatures in the ocean. Mixing of warm and cool water can moderate temperatures from which hurricanes draw their energy. Cooler water can, potentially, quench a hurricane.
Melville also plans to take a team of researchers to Australia to perform similar research on the Great Barrier Reef.
“We can take techniques that we develop in one place ” these can be used in another place,” he said.
Meanwhile, amid all of the research endeavors lurk the administrative duties of running an institution. However, Melville’s years of experience prepare him for the many hats he will wear at SIO in the years to come.