Study reveals ‘drastic changes’ in daily routines during UK lockdowns

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE

Some spent an extra hour a day on chores and childcare during lockdowns, while others got an added daily hour of solo leisure time – and most of us reduced time spent on paid work by around half an hour a day.  

This is according to a new study of “time-use diaries” kept by 766 UK citizens from across the social spectrum during three points in time: the last month of normality, the first lockdown, and the last lockdown in March of this year.   

Economists from the University of Cambridge and Queen Mary University of London collected data that charted time spent on activities during both typical work and nonwork days to map changes to the rhythm of life for millions.

The study, published today in the journal PLOS ONE, found marked differences between genders, particularly parents of young children, and that increases in odd working hours and downtime spent alone were detrimental to wellbeing.

“The lockdowns resulted in drastic changes to patterns of time use, disrupting routines and blurring the distinction between work and family life,” said co-author Dr Ines Lee from Cambridge’s Faculty of Economics.

“We have hopefully seen the end of lockdowns, but our study holds lessons for hybrid working, as splitting time between home and office becomes more common.”

“Employers should promote better work-life balance in the post-pandemic world. This could include limits on emails outside working hours, home-working schedules that suit parents, and options for younger workers left isolated by reduced in-person networking,” said Lee.  

The researchers looked at amounts of time each individual spent on activities in four broad categories: employment (excluding commutes); “housework” (from shopping to childcare); leisure (e.g. hobbies or home entertainment); subsistence (meals, sleeping, personal care).

While previous studies have focused on the initial lockdown, this is one of the first to examine the effects of repeated COVID-19 containment measures on our lives and routines.

For those employed before and during lockdowns*, people with at least one young child spent an average of 43 fewer minutes a day on their paid job in the first lockdown, and 32 fewer minutes in the third, compared to pre-pandemic. 

For those without young children it was an average decrease of 28 minutes and 22 minutes a day on paid work respectively.

Women with young children spent around an hour less on paid work a day than men and women without young children. This was mainly a reduction in time spent on actual work tasks rather than, for example, meetings.

During the first lockdown, the average time women spent on housework increased by 28 minutes a day, while for men the average time spent on subsistence activities (e.g. sleeping and eating) increased by 30 minutes. By 2021 these changes had evened out.

Life with small children during this year’s lockdown meant an extra hour of housework a day over pre-pandemic levels. Mothers of young kids did 67 more minutes of housework a day than fathers. Only women saw an increase in cooking and cleaning (time spent on caring duties was spread across genders).

The study suggests that parents often forfeited leisure time. Living with young kids was associated with a drop in leisure activities of almost an hour a day in both lockdowns – and income levels made no difference to this loss of downtime.

For those without young kids, leisure time increased – but much of it was spent alone. By the third lockdown, people with no small children had around an extra hour of solitary leisure time a day over pre-pandemic levels.

However, in terms of quality – the self-reported “enjoyment” of given activities – this solo leisure time felt less pleasurable during the last lockdown than it had prior to the pandemic.

The third lockdown also saw around 20% of individuals spend more time working unusual hours (outside 0830-1730) compared to the pre-pandemic period, which reduced the reported enjoyment of their day overall.

Those earning £5k a month or more, worked almost two extra hours a day than people earning less than £1k a month by the last lockdown. High earners also spent less time on subsistence activities during both lockdowns.

Overall, the third lockdown felt a bit more miserable than the first, according to the research.

While there was little change in the enjoyment of various activities in the early days of Covid, with men even reporting slightly higher “quality” of time during lockdown one, by March of this year enjoyment of activities was around 5% lower than pre-pandemic levels across the board.

Dr Eileen Tipoe, co-author from Queen Mary University of London, said: “It is no surprise that having to do more work outside of typical working hours meant that people were substantially unhappier during the third lockdown.

“And it was concerning to find that women, and especially those with young children, were disproportionately affected by lockdown – for example being less likely to be employed and the fact that only women spent more time cooking and cleaning.”

-ENDS-

 NOTES:

* Before Covid arrived, 86% of the sample was employed, but this fell to 63% in the first lockdown and 74% in the third. Mothers of young children were significantly less likely to be employed than fathers by the third lockdown.

---

JOURNAL

PLoS ONE

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0258917 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Changes in the quantity and quality of time use during the COVID-19 lockdowns in the UK: Who is the most affected?

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

3-Nov-2021

Study: In much of the US, virtual school did not lower COVID-19 case rates in surrounding communities

Analysis shows no difference in COVID-19 rates between U.S. counties where school was held in-person and those that had virtual school, except in the South

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF UTAH HEALTH

Since March 2020, parents, educators, and politicians have debated whether to send children to school in person during the COVID-19 pandemic. New research suggests that in most regions, with the exception of the South, opening schools for in-person learning was not associated with an increase in COVID-19 case rates in the community. The results of the nationwide study, published in Nature Medicine, included 895 school districts across the United States.

“The results suggest it is possible for schools to operate safely and in-person without increasing case rates in the community,” says Richard Nelson, Ph.D., associate professor of epidemiology at University of Utah Health and co-senior author with Westyn Branch-Elliman, M.D., of the VA Boston Healthcare System. “But the flip side is true, too. In some areas, in-person school did appear to be a source of community spread.”

The researchers analyzed data gathered during the 12 weeks from July to September 2020 by region, and categorized them as the Northeast, Midwest, South, and Mountain West. The Pacific West was not included because nearly all public schools were virtual. The study found that:

• In every region analyzed, COVID-19 cases increased during the weeks following the start of school.
• The South was the only region where case rates were higher in counties with in-person or hybrid school as compared to counties with virtual learning, after controlling for other contributing factors.
• In all other regions, community case rates during the period following school opening were similar regardless of whether school was virtual, hybrid, or in-person.

“We know that cases increased substantially last fall throughout the country,” Nelson says. “In some areas of the country, school mode was a contributing factor to those increasing rates, whereas in other areas it was not.”

In the South, which included 191 counties from Delaware to Texas, traditional in-person school was associated with an increase in community cases of COVID-19 beginning two weeks after the school reopened. The increase was chiefly among people between the ages of 0-9, or 20 and older. Data were not available for stratification that would allow the scientists to analyze impacts on different school-age groups (e.g. elementary, middle, and high school).

The researchers controlled for local policies, including closings of workplaces and public transportation, canceling of public events, COVID testing and contact tracing policies, and mask requirements.

However, because people follow policies imperfectly, another important piece of data the researchers considered was community mobility. This is data collected from Google location history that reflects how much people are actually moving around the community in four categories: residences, workplaces, grocery/pharmacy, and retail/recreation locations.

In communities where people are moving around more, there is more social interaction outside of school and thus more opportunity for infection to spread, Nelson explains. “Traditional school in an area where there’s lots of movement looks different than traditional school where there’s not much movement in the community, in terms of case rates,” Nelson says. “For this reason, it is important to take community-level mobility into account when evaluating the impact that schools had on cases.”

Together, the data suggest that the impact of traditional and hybrid school on community spread varied throughout the country, Nelson says. Further investigation into factors that may have contributed to community spread in the South could help determine the most effective mitigation measures for in-person school.

Branch-Elliman explains that it’s possible that regional differences in community-level and in-school mitigation strategies, or other factors such as environmental conditions, may have played a role. “It is important to appreciate that schools are not islands,” Branch-Elliman says. “They exist as part of a broader community network.”

At the time the study data were collected, vaccinations were not available and the Delta variant had not yet emerged in the U.S. Additional research will also need to investigate how these factors affect the spread of COVID-19.

# # #

The research was published as “The Impact of School Opening Model on SARS-CoV-2 Community Incidence and Mortality” and was supported by the National Institutes of Health.

Additional centers that participated in the study include Binghamton University, Boston University School of Medicine, Brown University, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Iowa City VA Health Care System, University of Iowa, VA Salt Lake City Health Care System, and Harvard Medical School

About University of Utah Health

University of Utah Health  provides leading-edge and compassionate care for a referral area that encompasses Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, and much of Nevada. A hub for health sciences research and education in the region, U of U Health has a $428 million research enterprise and trains the majority of Utah’s physicians and health care providers at its Colleges of Health, Nursing, and Pharmacy and Schools of Dentistry and Medicine. With more than 20,000 employees, the system includes 12 community clinics and five hospitals. U of U Health is recognized nationally as a transformative health care system and regionally a provider of world-class care.

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JOURNAL

Nature Medicine

DOI

10.1038/s41591-021-01563-8 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

The impact of school opening model on SARS-CoV-2 community incidence and mortality

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

27-Oct-2021

Please do not feed the monkey running wild around Tokyo, authorities ask

Casey Baseel

11/2/2021


Primate seen in two of Tokyo’s prime sightseeing wards.

Tokyo’s Shibuya Ward is one of the most interesting and colorful parts of the city. Filled with shops, parks, restaurants, theaters, and museums, there’s always something interesting to see in Shibuya.

And on Tuesday that included a monkey running around the streets.

▼ As a bonus, this monkey video is also a cat video!

   

The primate was first spotted in the morning near a preschool in Shibuya’s Tomigaya neighborhood, a few blocks south of the Yoyogi-Hachiman train station. While this part of the ward isn’t as urbanized as the area around Shibuya Station and its famed scramble intersection, it’s actually even closer to the geographical center of downtown, and farther away from any of the forested mountains where wild monkeys typically make their homes in Japan.

▼ Shibuya’s Tomigaya

As for what the animal was up to, it seemed to be primarily interested in ordinary monkey business, as various witnesses observed it climbing around on power lines and scampering up building exteriors, occasionally munching on fruits or berries it discovered, grooming itself, and lounging about and yawning.

Later in the day, the monkey had apparently had its fill of Toigaya and decided to check out the rest of what Tokyo has to offer, moving first to the Yoyogi neighborhood (also in Shibuya Ward) before making its way farther north to Shinjuku Ward’s Nishi Shinjuku district, periodically with ward employees attempting to capture it and locals, both on-site and online, enjoying the show and leaving comments such as:

“Dude, that monkey sounds like it’s really enjoying its day out in Tokyo!”
“Is it following a sightseeing course?”
“Has it been living in the city this whole time? If so, it had better be paying its resident taxes.”
“Well, there is a section of Shibuya that’s called Sarugakucho” [which means “Monkey Fun Town”].
“That’s one tough cat that it can just sleep like that with a monkey creeping up on it.”

As of Tuesday evening, the monkey has yet to be caught, and while no injuries have been reported, officials are asking residents to be cautious and to refrain from offering the animal snacks or other food should they encounter it. With SoraNews24 headquarters being located in Shinjuku, though, we will, of course, offer it an interview should it choose to come by the office.

Source: NHK News Web via Hachima Kiko, Twitter/@nhk_news (1, 2)
Top image: Pakutaso

Settlement services woefully underfunded: new report

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC ) is out of touch with the needs of local communities when it comes to funding programs to help newcomers, states a new report by the Association for Canadian Studies (ACS).

“They sit and make decisions from the ivory tower in Ottawa,” said the report in a summary of views from four focus groups comprising newcomer settlement service workers.

The focus group narrative report — Envisioning the Future of the Immigrant Serving Sector — centered around finding solutions to key challenges faced by new immigrants and service providers, which have been exacerbated by the onset of COVID-19.

The most highly discussed topic centred around restrictive and short-term IRCC funding agreements resulting in less innovation and sustainability in the sector.

Participants cited a lack of sustainability within the sector due to strict funding agreements and to the precarious nature of not knowing whether or not a program will continue to receive funding.

While the IRCC has switched to five-year funding agreements, the agreements still need to be negotiated each year, the forum heard.

“The IRCC has ultimate control over deciding which projects receive funding, and many participants felt as though sometimes the IRCC is out of touch with the needs of local communities.”

For instance, The Regional Municipality of York reported that the last funding cycle cut back significantly on employment services due to many newcomers entering Canada through express entry. Immigrants of this class are often expected to be workforce ready.

But many still struggle to find adequate employment due to barriers such as lack of credential recognition, the re-licensure process, underemployment, as well as lack of childcare and/or transportation.

Other examples brought forward by the focus groups include a youth program funded by the IRCC which was not able to provide any field trips for the youths due to the funding for the program not covering any transportation costs.

The South Okanagan Immigrant and Community Services (SOICS) reported that honoraria to support newcomers contributing their time are not covered by the IRCC funding it gets.

Other costs involving building closer relationships with the Indigenous communities through contact and hospitality, are also not covered by IRCC funding.

“There is a bit of a disconnect between the policy side and the operational side of our system when it comes to funding settlement services,” said a focus group participant.

Inconsistencies in funding models was another key issue.

A participant noted that there is a lack of job security and consistency for settlement workers due to funding agreements and program-based funding not covering pensions, long-term employment, or steady salaries.

Several respondents also critiqued the fact that IRCC funding models focus on outputs rather than impact and outcomes and meeting targets, rather than modernizing, innovating, and measuring long-term successes.

‘Counting the numbers’ is particularly unhelpful for rural settlement agencies who do not have large numbers, in which case the quality of settlement support should be the primary focus, said the report.

Similarly, one participant of a large, rural agency felt as though they were penalized for not having enough clients, especially during the pandemic, when fewer clients were able to travel to in-person sessions or find child care.

While discussing solutions for improving funding models, forum participants gave importance to engaging private organizations like banks, universities and social development initiatives.

One example cited involved Immigrant Services Calgary, which has been successful in securing a loan through a program called UCeed Social Impact Fund that was organized through the University of Calgary and Innovate Calgary.

Another solution raised was to scale up small, innovative, successful projects to larger organizations after they have been proven effective, rather than creating large-scale programs that cannot be down-scaled for smaller rural communities.

Multiple participants also discussed the need for increased staffing, as well as retention of service providers who leave to pursue more financially rewarding employment.

“Staff retention is a huge piece for us and that kind of goes more with the wages of the settlement sector,” one participant said.

The report, segmented into four sections — building capacity, best practices, funding models and improving attraction/accessibility of settlement services — provides a base to expand on the solutions uncovered, according to the Association for Canadian Studies, which conducted the research in collaboration with the WES Mariam Assefa Fund.

“We ultimately intend to pilot projects to address the issues and test solutions and recommendations to improve settlement and economic outcomes,” the study concluded.

Fabian Dawson, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, New Canadian Media

RESIGN KENNEY RESIGN

Alberta, with largest oil industry, sends fewer to COP than any other energy province

EDMONTON — The province with Canada's largest oil and gas industry has sent one of the country's smallest delegations to the COP26 international climate conference where emissions from that sector are under scrutiny.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

It's a missed opportunity, said one Alberta observer.

"It's incredibly good to be there and learn from these events," said Keith Brownsey, a political scientist at Mount Royal University. "It's smart, but apparently we don't think it's all that smart."

New Democrat Opposition Leader Rachel Notley said the United Conservative government has let Albertans down.

"Alberta workers need a seat at that table and the UCP made the decision to leave it empty," she said Wednesday.

A preliminary list of those attending the COP26 meetings in Glasgow, Scotland, shows that of 200 Canadian delegates, two are from the Alberta government. They are officials from Emissions Reduction Alberta, an agency funding emissions-reducing technologies, and are the province's only representatives.

Almost every province has sent more delegates or higher-level representatives to the meetings, which are setting the world's path to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels.

Newfoundland has nine people at the meetings and Manitoba has six. Ontario has four, as does the Northwest Territories. Quebec has 36 representatives.

Five provinces sent environment ministers. Prince Edward Island sent the director and coordinator of its environment department.

Inuit and Métis groups have more representation than Albertans.

 So do groups such as the Climate Action Network.

 Oilsands giant Suncor Energy has its own delegates.

There are also more Mounties at the meetings than representatives of the province with, arguably, the most at stake of any Canadian jurisdiction.

On Wednesday, Premier Jason Kenney defended his decision to send a small 

2 PERSON delegation to what he called earlier in the week a "gabfest."

"We will continue to vigorously defend Alberta's interests in emissions reduction and economic growth to ensure a strong future, but being part of a crowd of 30,000 is not an effective way of doing so," he said.

Kenney said it's more effective to have one-on-one meetings with financial and political leaders.

"We'll continue to have those direct conversations with key decision-makers."

Brownsey said the government has missed an important chance to gather information, make contacts and tell Alberta's story to the rest of the world.

"What goes on at COP has a dramatic impact on us in Alberta," he said.

"Even the Saudis were there, talking about how they were going to reduce emissions. And we sent two delegates?"

Brownsey said being at the conference allows delegates to better understand the positions of other countries.

"We don't know what's going on. We can read the official documents, but it's in the off-hours you find out what these groups are really thinking."

As well, Brownsey said not showing up leaves the field to a federal Liberal government with which Alberta's United Conservatives are often at odds.

"You complain about them, but do nothing to counter them."

Notley, who represented Alberta as premier during the COP21 meeting in Paris, said showing up would have been a good chance to work with Ottawa's new environment minister. She said such meetings allow Albertans to tell their own story.

"I remember a friend sending me a bunch of things from The Guardian (a U.K. newspaper) talking about all the progressive things the province of Alberta was doing. That story's not being told in our absence."

Notley said Alberta has missed a window to pitch the province as an investment destination for renewable energy.

"With all the investment money there, why isn't somebody telling the story about the promise that is our renewable energy industry?"

So far, the COP26 conference has seen announcements from Canada on emissions caps for oil and gas. Banks, insurers and investors managing $160 trillion have pledged to emphasize green investing.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 3, 2021.

Bob Weber, The Canadian Press

Study: Algorithm can predict when an adolescent will become suicidal with 91% accuracy

Study reveals which risk factors most strongly associated with suicidal thoughts and behavior among teens

Peer-Reviewed Publication

BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY

Researchers from Brigham Young University, Johns Hopkins and Harvard have created an algorithm that can predict suicidal thoughts and behavior among adolescents with 91% accuracy.

The researchers outline their machine learning approach in an article published today in PLOS ONE, where they also detail risk factors that are leading predictors of suicidal ideation and behavior among adolescents: online harassment and bullying.

“Suicide is the second leading cause of death among adolescents in the U.S.,” said Michael Barnes, study coauthor and Associate Dean of the BYU College of Life Sciences. “It’s critical we have a better understanding of the risk factors — and the protective factors — associated with this heartbreaking issue.”

The study results show researchers can predict with high accuracy which adolescents will exhibit suicidal thoughts (consider or planning) or suicidal behavior (attempting) based on experiences they face.

The team analyzed data from 179,384 junior high and high school students, along with those who participated in the Student Health and Risk Prevention survey from 2011-2017. The dataset includes responses to 300+ survey questions and 8000+ bits of demographic information, resulting in a total of 1.2 billion data points that were processed. Researchers then applied various algorithms to the data and found a machine-learning model that accurately predicted which adolescents went on to have suicidal thoughts and behaviors (STB) based on the data provided.

The data showed females were more likely to experience suicidal thoughts and behavior (17.7%) than males (10.8%), and that those adolescents without a father in the home were 72.6% more likely to have suicidal ideation than those that did.

Most importantly, the algorithm discovered which risk factors were the leading predictors of suicidal thoughts and behavior:

• Being threatened or harassed through digital media
• Being picked on or bullied by a student at school
• Exposure/involvement in serious arguments and yelling at home

“This analysis finds the most important root causes of suicidal thoughts and behavior in adolescents and creates risk profiles that give us a clearer picture of adolescents that are at risk,” said study coauthor Carl Hanson, professor of public health at BYU. “If you want to wrap your head around what you can do about it, these profiles are one good place to start.”

Researchers were not surprised to see some of the risk factors that rose to the top — bullying and harassment — but were a bit taken to see the heavy influence from family factors: three of the top ten predictive factors for STB were tied directly to family situations: 1) being in a family where there are serious arguments, 2) being in a family that argues about the same things over and over and 3) being in a family that yells and insults each other.

The team said the implications of the research are critical for prevention programming and policy making. Specifically, they hope policymakers use the STB risk profile and its associate rankings to prepare services, resources, and assessments aimed at school, community and family settings.

“Clearly the results speak to the need for prevention and schools may be the best place to start by helping to mitigate bullying and online harassment. The results also indicate a need to strengthen families,” Hanson said. “For communities, we need programming that can help support and strengthen the family.”

 

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JOURNAL

PLoS ONE

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0258535 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Predicting suicidal thoughts and behavior among adolescents using the risk and protective factor framework: A large-scale machine learning approach

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

3-Nov-2021

COI STATEMENT

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Machine learning can provide strong predictive accuracy for identifying adolescents that have experienced suicidal thoughts and behavior

Factors including online and at-school bullying, serious arguments at home, gender, alcohol use and attitudes about marijuana proved most highly associated with adolescent suicidal thoughts and behavior

Peer-Reviewed Publication

PLOS

 

IMAGE: FIG 7. THE TOP 10 MOST IMPORTANT QUESTIONS FOR MALES VS FEMALES. view more 

CREDIT: WELLER ET AL., 2021, PLOS ONE, CC-BY 4.0 (HTTPS://CREATIVECOMMONS.ORG/LICENSES/BY/4.0/)

Researchers have developed a new, machine learning-based algorithm that shows high accuracy in identifying adolescents who are experiencing suicidal thoughts and behavior. Orion Weller of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, and colleagues present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on November 3rd, 2021.

Decades of research have identified specific risk factors associated with suicidal thoughts and behavior among adolescents, helping to inform suicide prevention efforts. However, few studies have explored these risk factors in combination with each other, especially in large groups of adolescents. Now, the field of machine learning has opened up new opportunities for such research, which could ultimately improve prevention efforts.

To explore that opportunity, Weller and colleagues applied machine-learning analysis to data from a survey of high school students in Utah that is routinely conducted to monitor issues such as drug abuse and mental health. The data included responses to more than 300 questions each for more than 179,000 high school students who took the survey between 2011 to 2017, as well as demographic data from the U.S. census.

The researchers found that they could use the survey data to predict with 91 percent accuracy which individual adolescents’ answers indicated suicidal thoughts or behavior. In doing so, they were able to identify which survey questions had the most predictive power; these included questions about digital media harassment or threats, at-school bullying, serious arguments at home, gender, alcohol use, feelings of safety at school, age, and attitudes about marijuana.

The new algorithm’s accuracy is higher than that of previously developed predictive approaches, suggesting that machine-learning could indeed improve understanding of adolescent suicidal thoughts and behavior—and could thereby help inform and refine preventive programs and policies.

Future research could expand the new findings by using data from other states, as well as data on actual suicide rates.

The authors add: “Our paper examines machine learning approaches applied to a large dataset of adolescent questionnaires, in order to predict suicidal thoughts and behaviors from their answers. We find strong predictive accuracy in identifying those at risk and analyze our model with recent advances in ML interpretability. We found that factors that strongly influence the model include bullying and harassment, as expected, but also aspects of their family life, such as being in a family with yelling and/or serious arguments. We hope that this study can provide insight to inform early prevention efforts.”

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JOURNAL

PLoS ONE

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0258535 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Computational simulation/modeling

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Predicting suicidal thoughts and behavior among adolescents using the risk and protective factor framework: A large-scale machine learning approach

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

3-Nov-2021

COI STATEMENT

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Autonomous robotic rover helps scientists with long-term monitoring of deep-sea carbon cycle and climate change

Peer-Reviewed Publication

MONTEREY BAY AQUARIUM RESEARCH INSTITUTE

 

IMAGE: MBARI'S BENTHIC ROVER II TRAVELS ACROSS THE MUDDY SEAFLOOR, TAKING PHOTOGRAPHS AND MEASURING HOW MUCH OXYGEN BOTTOM-DWELLING ANIMALS AND MICROBES ARE USING OVER TIME. THE INFORMATION GATHERED BY THIS AUTONOMOUS ROVER HAS HELPED SCIENTISTS UNDERSTAND HOW CARBON CYCLES FROM THE SURFACE TO THE SEAFLOOR. view more 

CREDIT: © 2016 MBARI

The sheer expanse of the deep sea and the technological challenges of working in an extreme environment make these depths difficult to access and study. Scientists know more about the surface of the moon than the deep seafloor. MBARI is leveraging advancements in robotic technologies to address this disparity.

An autonomous robotic rover, Benthic Rover II, has provided new insight into life on the abyssal seafloor, 4,000 meters (13,100 feet) beneath the surface of the ocean. A study published today in Science Robotics details the development and proven long-term operation of this rover. This innovative mobile laboratory has further revealed the role of the deep sea in cycling carbon. The data collected by this rover are fundamental to understanding the impacts of climate change on the ocean.

“The success of this abyssal rover now permits long-term monitoring of the coupling between the water column and seafloor. Understanding these connected processes is critical to predicting the health and productivity of our planet engulfed in a changing climate,” said MBARI Senior Scientist Ken Smith.

Despite its distance from the sunlit shallows, the deep seafloor is connected to the waters above and is vital for carbon cycling and sequestration. Bits of organic matter—including dead plants and animals, mucus, and excreted waste—slowly sink through the water column to the seafloor. The community of animals and microbes on and in the mud digests some of this carbon while the rest might get locked in deep-sea sediments for up to thousands of years.

The deep sea plays an important role in Earth’s carbon cycle and climate, yet we still know little about processes happening thousands of meters below the surface. Engineering obstacles like extreme pressure and the corrosive nature of seawater make it difficult to send equipment to the abyssal seafloor to study and monitor the ebb and flow of carbon.

In the past, Smith and other scientists relied on stationary instruments to study carbon consumption by deep seafloor communities. They could only deploy these instruments for a few days at a time. By building on 25 years of engineering innovation, MBARI has developed a long-term solution for monitoring the abyssal seafloor.

“Exciting events in the deep sea generally occur both briefly and at unpredictable intervals, that’s why having continuous monitoring with Benthic Rover II is so crucial,” explained Electrical Engineering Group Lead Alana Sherman. “If you’re not watching all the time, you’re likely to miss the main action.”

Benthic Rover II is the result of the hard work of a collaborative team of MBARI engineers and scientists, led by Smith and Sherman. 

Engineers at MBARI designed Benthic Rover II to handle the cold, corrosive, and high-pressure conditions of the deep sea. Constructed from corrosion-resistant titanium, plastic, and pressure-resistant syntactic foam, this rover can withstand deployments up to 6,000 meters (about 19,700 feet) deep.

“In addition to the physical challenges of operating in these extreme conditions, we also had to design a computer control system and software reliable enough to run for a year without crashing—nobody is there to press a reset button,” explained MBARI Electrical Engineer Paul McGill. “The electronics also have to consume very little power so that we can carry enough batteries to last for a year. Despite all it does, the rover consumes an average of only two watts—about the same as an iPhone.”

Benthic Rover II is about the size of a small car—2.6 meters (8.5 feet) long, 1.7 meters (5.6 feet) wide, and 1.5 meters (4.9 feet) high—and treads gently over the muddy bottom on a pair of wide, rubber tracks.

Researchers deploy Benthic Rover II from MBARI’s vessel, the R/V Western Flyer. The ships’ crew gingerly lowers the rover into the water and releases it to free-fall to the ocean floor. It takes the rover about two hours to reach the bottom. Once it lands on the seafloor, the rover can begin its mission.

First, sensors check the currents flowing along the seafloor. When they detect favorable currents, the rover moves up or across the current to reach an undisturbed site to begin collecting data.

Cameras on the front of the rover photograph the seafloor and measure fluorescence. This distinctive glow of chlorophyll under blue light reveals how much “fresh” phytoplankton and other plant debris has landed on the seafloor. Sensors log the temperature and oxygen concentration of the waters just above the bottom.

Next, the rover lowers a pair of transparent respirometer chambers that measure the oxygen consumption of the community of life in the mud for 48 hours. As animals and microbes digest organic matter, they use oxygen and release carbon dioxide in a specific ratio. Knowing how much oxygen those animals and microbes use is crucial for understanding carbon remineralization—the breakdown of organic matter into simpler components, including carbon dioxide.

After 48 hours, the rover raises the respirometer chambers and moves 10 meters (32 feet) forward, careful not to cross its previous path, and selects another site to sample. It repeats this sampling pattern over and over for the duration of deployment, typically a full year.

At the end of each deployment, the R/V Western Flyer returns to recover the rover, download its data, swap out its battery, and return it to the deep seafloor for another year. Within each year-long deployment, the MBARI team launches another autonomous robot—the Wave Glider—from shore to return quarterly to check on Benthic Rover II’s progress. “The rover can’t communicate with us directly to tell us its location or condition, so we send a robot to find our robot,” explained McGill. An acoustic transmitter on the Wave Glider pings the rover on the seafloor below. The rover then sends status updates and sample data to the glider overhead. The glider then transmits that information to researchers on shore via satellite. 

“Data from the Benthic Rover II have helped us quantify when, how much, and what sources of carbon might be sequestered, or stored, in the abyssal seafloor,” said MBARI Senior Research Specialist Crissy Huffard. 

For the past seven years, Benthic Rover II has been continuously operational at Station M, an MBARI research site located 225 kilometers (140 miles) off the coast of central California. Station M lies 4,000 meters (13,100 feet) below the ocean’s surface—as deep as the average depth of the ocean—making it a good model system for studying abyssal ecosystems.

Over the past 32 years, Smith and his team have constructed a unique underwater observatory at Station M. Benthic Rover II and a suite of other instruments operate there 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for a full year without servicing. 

“The rover’s reliable performance over seven years, spending 99 percent of its life on the seafloor, is a result of many years of testing, troubleshooting, and developing the best techniques to maintain the vehicle,” said Sherman. “It’s a great example of what’s possible when applying technology to challenging problems in science.”

Data collected at Station M show that the deep sea is far from static. Physical, chemical, and biological conditions can change dramatically over timescales ranging from hours to decades.

The surface waters of the California Current over Station M teem with phytoplankton in the spring and summer. These seasonal pulses in productivity cascade from the water column to the seafloor. Much of this sinking organic matter—known as “marine snow”—originated as carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Over the past decade, MBARI researchers have observed a dramatic increase in large pulses of marine snow falling to the seafloor at Station M. These episodic events account for an increasing fraction of the yearly food supply at this site. In seven years of operation at Station M, Benthic Rover II recorded significant weekly, seasonal, annual, and episodic events—all providing data that help MBARI researchers understand the deep-sea carbon cycle.

Between November 2015 and November 2020, Benthic Rover II recorded a substantial increase in the rain of dead phytoplankton and other plant-rich debris (phytodetritus) landing on the abyssal seafloor from the waters overhead. A decrease in the concentration of dissolved oxygen in the waters just above the deep seafloor accompanied this windfall of organic matter.

Traditional short-term monitoring tools would not have detected the fluctuations that drive long-term changes and trends. Benthic Rover II has revealed a more complete picture of how carbon moves from the surface to the seafloor.

“Benthic Rover II has alerted us to important short- and long-term changes in the deep sea that are being missed in global models,” underscored Huffard.

The success of Benthic Rover II and MBARI’s ongoing work at Station M highlight how persistent platforms and long-term observations can further our understanding of the largest living space on Earth. With more companies looking to extract mineral resources from the deep seafloor, these data also give valuable insights into the baseline conditions in areas under consideration for industrial development or deep-sea mining.

The ocean is also a crucial component in Earth’s carbon cycle and climate. The ocean and its biological communities are a sink for carbon dioxide. Burning fossil fuels, raising livestock, and clearing forests release billions of tons of carbon dioxide into our atmosphere every year. The ocean has buffered us from the worst impacts by absorbing more than 25 percent of this excess carbon dioxide. Facing a changing climate, understanding how carbon flows between the ocean’s sunlit surface and its dark depths is more important than ever.

 

About MBARI

MBARI (Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute) is a private non-profit oceanographic research center, founded by David Packard in 1987 focused on developing innovative technologies for exploring and understanding the ocean. The mission of MBARI is to advance marine science and technology to understand a changing ocean.

For additional information or images relating to this release, please email pressroom@mbari.org.

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JOURNAL

Science Robotics

DOI

10.1126/scirobotics.abl4925 

ARTICLE TITLE

Abyssal Benthic Rover: autonomous long-term monitoring of deep-ocean processes

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

3-Nov-2021

Mapping annual wildfire probabilities across California

Statistical modeling highlights predictive importance of local climate and human activity

Peer-Reviewed Publication

PLOS

 

IMAGE: ACTIVE FLAME FRONT OF THE ZACA FIRE, THE SECOND LARGEST FIRE ON RECORD IN CALIFORNIA. U.S. FOREST SERVICE. view more 

CREDIT: JOHN NEWMAN, WIKIMEDIA, CC0 (HTTPS://CREATIVECOMMONS.ORG/PUBLICDOMAIN/ZERO/1.0/)

Researchers have uncovered new insights into the dynamics that underlie the probabilities of wildfire across the state of California. Isaac Park of the University of California, Santa Barbara, and colleagues present their method and findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on November 3, 2021.

Recent wildfires in California and nearby states have demonstrated the need to better understand the dynamics that determine where and when wildfires occur. However, the factors and conditions that interact to contribute to the probability of wildfire—such as the interplay between local vegetation, precipitation, human land use, and more—are diverse and complex, and they vary between locations and over time.

To improve understanding of those relationships, Park and colleagues used a statistical approach known as generalized additive modeling to explore and map annual wildfire probabilities throughout California from 1970 to 2016. This work built on previous research that employed the same technique for longer time scales. In this case, the researchers tailored the method for annual probabilities by incorporating relevant information on local climate variation, human activity, and the amount of time since the previous fire event for each location and year—all at a geographic scale of 1 kilometer.

This analysis uncovered several new insights into wildfire probabilities in California. For instance, the researchers found, both local climate and human activity—such as the dryness of fuel available to burn and housing density—play key roles in determining wildfire probabilities throughout the state. For example, portions of the Southern California mountains such as the Angeles and Los Padres National Forests were at high risk, having plenty of vegetation and therefore fuel availability as well as being close to and at risk from ignitions starting in high-density housing in the Los Angeles metropolitan area.

In addition, in certain environments, the amount of time since the last fire has an important influence; as do short-term climate variations involving extreme conditions, especially in fire-prone shrublands and forests in southern California.

The researchers also showed that their broad-scale, state-wide approach for predicting wildfire probabilities outperformed statistical models developed for certain localized regions. The researchers suggest that this work—and further refinements to their modeling method—could prove valuable for a variety of research and practical applications in such areas as wildfire emissions and hazard mapping for implementation of fire-resistant building codes.

The authors add: “This study presents a powerful tool for mapping the probability of wildfire across the state of California under a variety of historical climate regimes. By leveraging machine learning methods, it demonstrates the distinct ways in which local climate, human development, and prior fire history each contribute to the yearly risk of wildfire over space and time.”

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JOURNAL

PLoS ONE

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0254723 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Computational simulation/modeling

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Relationships of climate, human activity, and fire history to spatiotemporal variation in annual fire probability across California

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

3-Nov-2021

COI STATEMENT

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.