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This Groundbreaking Simulator Generates a Huge Indoor Ocean - WIRED
Oct 26, 2021 2 mins, 5 secs
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Just a short walk from the sea at San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography, researchers are putting the finishing touches on a remarkable feat of engineering: an indoor ocean.

This is the Scripps Ocean Atmosphere Research Simulator, or Soars, a customizable ecosystem for scientists to better understand how the seas are transforming under the burden of climate change.

“Imagine it as a giant wave tank with a wind tunnel grafted on top,” says Scripps oceanographer Dale Stokes, co-principal investigator of Soars.

“It's a complex mixture of chemistry, biology, and physics,” says Scripps oceanographer Grant Deane, co-principal investigator of Soars.

Atmospheric aerosol scientist Paul DeMott of Colorado State University is planning an experiment at Soars next summer in which his team might change temperatures and wind speeds to see how aerosols are generated.

He’ll be able to watch the process close up from several vantage points: A gangway over the tank offers a top-down view, and a big aquarium-style window in the control room shows the experiments in cross-section.

For DeMott, Soars provides an ultra-controlled environment where he can isolate aerosols from the water without having to worry about other sources.

“So you're getting some kind of an integrated effect when you're making a measurement on the ship, and you aren't necessarily capturing only the nascent emissions that are coming from the ocean,” says DeMott.

With Soars, DeMott can play with the variables and see what happens. .

Kimberly Prather, an atmospheric chemist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and co-principal investigator of Soars, has been participating in the simulator's trial runs this fall, and will be running full experiments once it opens.

They emit gases when they communicate with each other,” says Prather.

“Nobody has done it yet in a systematic manner, to really go after how the ocean is controlling the composition of the atmosphere that's ultimately affecting air quality and health, and the health of our planet,” says Prather

“To understand all of these as a dynamic evolving system, I think it's going to be a really, really exciting and powerful facility,” says UC Davis atmospheric chemist Christopher Cappa, who’s planning experiments at Soars next summer

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