By Katherine Yoseloff
The Hans Hansson and her crew are excited to have a device onboard that is continuously monitoring Carbon Dioxide levels in the Southern ocean. The project is led by Dr. Lucie Knor who got to join the crew onboard to install the unit. Read more about the science and Dr Knor’s career in science.
About Dr. Knor
Growing up as a teenager, Dr. Lucie Knor was a part of Greenpeace, an organization which uses peaceful protest and campaigning to confront climate change and global environmental issues. Dr. Knor’s involvement with Greenpeace inspired her passion in climate studies, and she decided she wanted to major in Environmental Policy during university. However, as she went through her courses, she realized her natural science classes interested her more than policy discussions. Thus, she switched her major to Environmental Sciences.
After university, Dr. Knor moved to complete her masters degree and PhD at the University of Hawaii. During her Masters program, Dr. Knor specifically looked at metal isotopes and how streams could be a source that perpetuated their pollution. Through this work, she became a research assistant in a project that was maintaining buoys measuring CO2 in different waters. She came to see ocean acidification not just as a subject of study, but as a field she wanted to pursue more deeply in future projects.
For her dissertation, Dr. Knor decided to explore ocean acidification further by observing certain coral reefs in Hawaii, which have been affected by this acidification and influence the CO2 chemistry of the water around them as they are made of calcium carbonate.
Her Project
Today, Dr. Knor works for an organization called TRICUSO (Three Research Infrastructures together: Carbon Uptake Southern Ocean), which seeks to enhance carbon observation in the Southern Ocean through innovating sensor technologies and expanding observation capacity through autonomous platforms and citizen science.
Dr. Knor specifically works with operating a device called the OceanPack RACE model, which was primarily designed to be placed on racing yachts. The tool is set up to work autonomously around the clock, and is connected to tubes which pump seawater through its system. The water then flows over a membrane which does not allow the liquid to pass, however lets through the CO2, which is then detected by an infrared sensor. Thus, the OceanPack is able to measure the contents of CO2 in a given area of water.
Dr. Knor was interested in attaching the OceanPak to a cruise vessel, so she reached out to 60 South. She has now installed this device on the Hans Hanson, and it is still in operation today. If you would like to see the devices current metrics, take a look at this website, which shows the up to date readings of the OceanPack and location of the Hans Hanson, check out this website: https://beluga.geomar.de/tricuso_hans_hansson
Memories with 60 South
Dr. Knor was originally supposed to fly out to install her device on the Hans Hanson and fly home. However, due to a flight delay, Dr. Knor plans changed and she joined the vessel for their sail south to Antarctica. Not only did Dr. Knor enjoy the trip on a personal level, but the experience also allowed her to help the crew get acclimated to the device. Dr. Knor’s favorite part of the trip was getting to see wildlife such as dolphins and orcas. She also enjoyed getting to see penguins and learning more about how they swim.
Towards the end of her trip, the OceanPack broke down, and Dr. Knor was unable to fix it. However, thanks to the help of the engineer at 60 South, the OceanPack was fixed and Dr. Knor was able to continue collecting data to further scientific understanding.
We are so excited to participate in this project with Dr. Knor and to promote her contributions to citizen science, advancing scientific knowledge and encouraging community engagement to help solve real-world problems.
