The winter ice on the surface of Antarctica’s Weddell Sea occasionally forms an enormous hole. A hole that appeared in 2016 and 2017 drew from scientists and reporters. Though even bigger gaps had formed decades before, this was the first time oceanographers had a chance to truly monitor the unexpected gap in Antarctic winter sea ice.

A new study led by the 91̽»¨ combines satellite images of the sea ice cover, robotic drifters and even seals outfitted with sensors to better understand the phenomenon. The research explores why this hole appears in only some years, and what role it could play in the larger ocean circulation.

The was published June 10 in the journal .

“We thought this large hole in the sea ice — known as a polynya — was something that was rare, maybe a process that had gone extinct. But the events in 2016 and 2017 forced us to reevaluate that,” said lead author , a 91̽»¨doctoral student in oceanography. “Observations show that the recent polynyas opened from a combination of factors — one being the unusual ocean conditions, and the other being a series of very intense storms that swirled over the Weddell Sea with almost hurricane-force winds.”

A “polynya,” a Russian word that roughly means “hole in the ice,” can form near shore as wind pushes the ice around. But it can also appear far from the coast and stick around for weeks to months, where it acts as an oasis for penguins, whales and seals to pop up and breathe.

This particular spot far from the Antarctic coast often has small openings and has seen large polynyas before. The biggest known polynyas at that location were in 1974, 1975 and 1976, just after the first satellites were launched, when an area the size of New Zealand remained ice-free through three consecutive Antarctic winters despite air temperatures far below freezing.

Campbell joined the 91̽»¨as a graduate student in 2016 to better understand this mysterious phenomenon. In a stroke of scientific luck, a big one appeared for the first time in decades. A NASA in August 2016 drew public attention to a 33,000-square-kilometer (13,000-square-mile) gap that appeared for three weeks. An even bigger gap, of 50,000 square kilometers (19,000 square miles) appeared in September and October of 2017.

The Southern Ocean is thought to play a key role in global ocean currents and carbon cycles, but its behavior is poorly understood. It hosts some of the fiercest storms on the planet, with winds whipping uninterrupted around the continent in the 24-hour darkness of polar winter. The new study used observations from the project, or SOCCOM, which puts out instruments that drift with the currents to monitor Antarctic conditions.

The study also used data from the long-running Argo ocean observing program, back to shore, weather stations and decades of satellite images.

“This study shows that this polynya is actually caused by a number of factors that all have to line up for it to happen,” said co-author , a 91̽»¨professor of oceanography. “In any given year you could have several of these things happen, but unless you get them all, then you don’t get a polynya.”

The study shows that when winds surrounding Antarctica draw closer to shore, they promote stronger upward mixing in the eastern Weddell Sea. In that region, an underwater mountain known as Maud Rise forces dense seawater around it and leaves a spinning vortex above. Two SOCCOM instruments were trapped in the vortex above Maud Rise and recorded years of observations there.

Analysis shows that when the surface ocean is especially salty, as seen throughout 2016, strong winter storms can set off an overturning circulation. Warmer, saltier water from the depths gets churned up to the surface, where air chills it and makes it denser than the water below. As that water sinks, relatively warmer deep water of about 1 degree Celsius (34 F) replaces it, creating a feedback loop where ice can’t reform.

Under climate change, fresh water from melting glaciers and other sources will make the Southern Ocean’s surface layer less dense, which might mean fewer polynyas in the future. But the new study questions that assumption. Many models show that the winds circling Antarctica will become stronger and draw closer to the coast — the new paper suggests this would encourage more polynyas to form, not fewer.

These are the first observations to prove that even a smaller polynya like the one in 2016 moves water from the surface all the way to the deep ocean.

“Essentially it’s a flipping over of the entire ocean, rather than an injection of surface water on a one-way trip from the surface to the deep,” said co-author , who recently completed his doctorate in oceanography at the UW.

One way that a surface polynya matters for the climate is for the deepest water in the oceans, known as Antarctic Bottom Water. This cold, dense water lurks below all the other water. Where and how it’s created affects its characteristics, and would have ripple effects on other major ocean currents.

“Right now people think most of the bottom water is forming on the Antarctic shelf, but these big offshore polynyas might have been more common in the past,” Riser said. “We need to improve our models so we can study this process, which could have larger-scale climate implications.”

Large and long-lasting polynyas can also affect the atmosphere, because deep water contains carbon from lifeforms that have sunk over centuries and dissolved on their way down. Once this water reaches the surface that carbon could be released.

“This deep reservoir of carbon has been locked away for hundreds of years, and in a polynya it might get ventilated at the surface through this really violent mixing,” Campbell said. “A large carbon outgassing event could really whack the climate system if it happened multiple years in a row.”

Other co-authors on the paper are at the University of Toronto, who was the 2016-17 Canada Fulbright Visiting Chair in Arctic Studies at the UW; at the University of South Carolina; and and from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego. SOCCOM is funded by the National Science Foundation. Campbell was supported by the U.S. Department of Defense through the National Defense Science & Engineering Graduate Fellowship program. Additional funding is from the NSF, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the 91̽»¨ and Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

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For more information, contact Campbell at ethancc@uw.edu and 224-388-0301, Riser at riser@uw.edu and 206-543-1187 or Wilson at earlew@uw.edu.

NSF: PLR-1425989; NOAA: NA15OAR4320063

On July 20, 1969, the landed the first two people on the surface of the moon. NASA astronaut Neil Armstrong took the first steps and famously proclaimed: “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

This July will mark the 50^th anniversary of that landmark event. The 91̽»¨’s is calling on the next generation of astronauts and aeronautical engineers to recreate the historic event using modern technology.

At a kickoff event Jan. 30 in Kent, Washington, the organizers will officially open the Apollo 50 Next Giant Leap Student Challenge, known for short as the , in collaboration with NASA’s Science Mission Directorate.

“This is a truly interdisciplinary challenge, involving computer programming, robotics, remote sensing and design,” said , director of the Northwest Earth and Space Sciences Pipeline and a 91̽»¨professor of Earth and space sciences. “We’re calling it the ‘next giant leap.'”

Teams of students from fifth to 12th grades are invited to participate. Each team will build a replica of the and use a remote-controlled drone to land it on an 8-by-12-foot map of the moon’s surface. Students will modify and program a Lego robot to then explore the lunar surface and bring back a rock sample.

High school students will also use the drone to retrieve the team’s lunar module and bring it back to the starting line.

As in a real-life expedition, teams will also create a mission patch, design uniforms, do event outreach and leave a “culturally significant artifact” on the lunar surface.

Organizers emphasize that it’s a challenge, not a contest. Teams will be judged on multiple criteria and can earn various prizes. No experience is required; registration opens Feb. 1.

The challenge has no entry fee. A $500 kit contains subsidized equipment including the drone and Lego Mindstorms parts, and loaner equipment will be available to schools that qualify. Accommodation at the 91̽»¨campus will be covered for teams at schools with more than 50 percent subsidized lunches. The organizers will also help all teams with fundraising, and can provide drone and robotics training on request.

“An important aspect of the project is to provide access to NASA science and technology for many of the underserved and underrepresented communities across the U.S.,” Winglee said.

Teams must include one adult to act as the coach, and a five-member “flight crew” all under the age of 18 who will be on the challenge field to pilot the drone, operate the robot, identify rock samples and guide the pilot. Other members of the mixed-grade teams will help with building equipment, designing logos and other off-the-field tasks.

The Northwest challenge will be held in July in Seattle and is open to teams from schools or recognized informal education programs in Washington. Twelve other NASA regional hubs will also host events the week of July 15-20. The winning team from each location will win a trip in early August to visit NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

The initial sponsors of the national challenge are drone maker Force1, NASA, the Museum of Flight, Pacific Science Center and the City of Kent. Organizers are seeking more event sponsors, and volunteers to help advise teams and host the challenges.

The UW-based Northwest Earth and Space Sciences Pipeline consortium was created in 2016 with a $10 million that established a “NASA hub” in the Pacific Northwest. The group conducts teacher trainings, especially in underrepresented communities; its past events include a in Ellensburg and a in Seattle.

“Smaller-scale, related STEM efforts in recent years have shown that student participants have increasing interest and skill in doing STEM activities,” Winglee said. “The Apollo effort seeks to expand this effort on a national scale.”

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More information is at . The challenge email is apollo50@uw.edu

Members of the media can contact communications officer Chris Wallish at 206-221-7743 or cwallish@uw.edu.

Around the planet’s oceans, nearly 4,000 floats — many of them built at the 91̽»¨ — are plunging up and down, collecting and transmitting observations of the world’s oceans.

This fall, one of these diving robots made the program’s , reporting temperature and salinity recorded to a depth of about a mile.

The is a 20-year-old project to gather 3D data on the oceans. The U.S. program is part of an with 26 countries that operate floats throughout the planet’s waters.

“When we started in 1999, no one would have even considered the 2 million profile milestone,” said , a 91̽»¨professor of oceanography. “In the beginning there was some question about whether the instruments would even work well enough to do this. We were just hoping it would work for the first few years.”

The 91̽»¨has manufactured between one third and one half of the U.S. floats now in use, Riser said, which account for about half the international total. So the 91̽»¨has manufactured about a fifth or a sixth of the world’s supply.

The 91̽»¨manufactures roughly 110 floats per year that get deployed around the planet. Two undergraduates work in the lab and three graduate students are working with the data. Of this year’s 91̽»¨floats, two-thirds were destined for the South Pacific and the other third are going to Antarctica.

Scientists say the nearly 20-year-old robotic fleet has transformed oceanography: Satellites track information only from the ocean’s surface, while ship-based observations are expensive and see only a small snapshot.

“Not to be too hyperbolic, but Argo has really revolutionized physical oceanography,” said , an assistant professor of oceanography. “I think it’s been one of the largest successes of any observational program of its kind.”

The cylindrical robots, about the size of a large rolled-up poster, dive down to a depth of 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) to drift with currents, then later sink down to 2 kilometers. After 10 days below the surface they adjust their buoyancy and gather data on the upward trip. Once at the surface, an antenna beams data back to computers onshore. A single battery lets the robot explore unaided for four to five years.

“One of the most important practical uses for the data is in weather forecasting, in that the data that we get from Argo have significantly improved weather forecasts and marine forecasting around the world,” Gray said. “But scientists are interested in the data to understand the processes that are controlling the ocean, and how the ocean impacts the climate system.”

More than 4,000 scientific papers and 275 doctoral theses have been written using Argo data. Observations are uploaded to the internet every three hours and are then available for free for anyone to use.

“That’s become the norm, the real-time availability of data,” Riser said. “But that was not the norm when we started in 2000.”

In the future, and floats will travel deeper and measure more things than the original devices. Both are in small-scale prototype mode now, Riser said, and researchers hope to secure funding for a larger-scale deployment. In addition to temperature and salinity these can measure ocean pH, oxygen, nitrate, chlorophyll found in microscopic algae, and light penetration.

While the existing Argo array helps to understand the movement of heat in the oceans, the newer technology will explore the deep ocean and help track the movement of carbon, which is the other half of the climate puzzle, Riser said.

“In coming years, it will be really important to maintain the core array, the high-quality data that’s coming in, but also to expand into these new areas: sensors that can measure new variables, and technology that lets us go into deeper water or even into coastal regions,” Gray said.

The 91̽»¨has already been as part of a dedicated project to study the ocean around Antarctica. A global Argo version would be similar, Riser said, but without the ice-avoidance capabilities.

“The biogeochemical floats will be a whole different set of results that we can’t even imagine right now,” Riser said. “It won’t just be the heat part of the ocean cycle, it will be the carbon cycle. There’s a tremendous amount to learn.”

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For more information, contact Gray at argray@uw.edu or 206-543-0593 or Riser at riser@uw.edu or 206-543-1187.

Recent headlines declaring “Robot Kills Man in Germany” are examples of growing news coverage about the impact of robots on society. This is the subject of a new law review article by a 91̽»¨ faculty member.

Twenty years in, the law is finally starting to get used to the Internet. Now it is imperative, says , assistant professor in the , that the law figure out how to deal effectively with the rise of robotics and artificial intelligence.

“Technology has not stood still. The same private institutions that developed the Internet, from the armed forces to search engines, have initiated a significant shift toward robotics and artificial intelligence,” writes Calo in “.” His article, published in June in the California Law Review, is among the first to examine what the introduction of robotics and artificial intelligence means for law and policy.

Robotics, Calo adds, is shaping up to be the next transformative technology of our time: “Courts that struggled for the proper metaphor to apply to the Internet will struggle anew with robotics.”

Though mention of robotics and artificial intelligence can prompt images of unstoppable Terminators and mutinous HAL 9000 computers, Calo dismisses such drama early on. “And yet,” he adds, “the widespread distribution of robotics in society will, like the Internet, create deep social, cultural, economic and of course legal tensions” long before any such sci-fi-style future.

To Calo, robotics is essentially different than the Internet and so will raise different legal issues.

“Robotics combines, for the first time, the promiscuity of data with the capacity to do physical harm,” Calo writes. “Robotic systems accomplish tasks in ways that cannot be anticipated in advance, and robots increasingly blur the line between person and instrument.”

But does that mean robotics and artificial intelligence need different treatment under the law, or different laws entirely, than the technologies of which they are made, such as computers?

In the paper and a 2014 on the same subject, Calo relates an anecdote about Chicago judge and law professor Frank Easterbrook, who in 1996 famously likened research in Internet law to studying “the law of the horse.” Easterbrook felt any single approach is doomed to “be shallow and to miss unifying principles.” Calo quotes science fiction writer Cory Doctorow, who in a response to Calo in The Guardian that he could not think of a legal principle applicable to robots that would not also be usefully applied to the computer, and vice versa.

“I disagreed with Easterbrook then and I disagree with Doctorow now,” Calo writes. “Robotics has a different set of essential qualities than the Internet, which animate a new set of legal puzzles.”

Calo’s conclusion is, in a sense, a follow-up to his : Robotics and artificial intelligence, he finds, have essentially different qualities than the law has yet faced.

“So I join a chorus of voices, from Bill Gates to the White House, to assume that robotics represents an idea whose time has come. The qualities, and the experiences they generate, occasion a distinct catalogue of legal and policy issues that sometimes do, and sometimes do not, echo the central questions of contemporary cyberlaw.”

Calo, whom Business Insider named one of the , concludes, “Cyberlaw will have to engage, to a far greater degree, with the prospect of data causing physical harm, and to the line between speech and action. Rather than think of how code controls people, cyberlaw will think of what people can do to control code.”

Calo’s recent paper has already attracted from a fellow legal scholar, Yale Law School’s , who calls it a valuable discussion: “Calo’s account of the problems that robotics present for law is just terrific, and I believe it is destined to be the starting point for much future research in the area.”

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For more information, contact Calo at 206-543-1580 or rcalo@uw.edu. Follow Calo on Twitter at

• Read Calo’s Slate article, “
• Watch a of Calo discussing robotics and cyberlaw at the 2014 “We Robot” conference at the University of Miami.
• Read an with Calo about the June 29, 2015, robot-caused fatality in a German Volkswagen factory.

It’s becoming more common to have robots sub in for humans to do dirty or sometimes dangerous work. But researchers are finding that in some cases, people have started to treat robots like pets, friends, or even as an extension of themselves. That raises the question, if a soldier attaches human or animal-like characteristics to a field robot, can it affect how they use the robot? What if they “care” too much about the robot to send it into a dangerous situation?

That’s what , who just received her 91̽»¨doctorate in education, wanted to know. She interviewed Explosive Ordnance Disposal military personnel – highly trained soldiers who use robots to disarm explosives – about how they feel about the robots they work with every day. Part of her research involved determining if the relationship these soldiers have with field robots could affect their decision-making ability and, therefore, mission outcomes. In short, even though the robot isn’t human, how would a soldier feel if their robot got damaged or blown up?

What Carpenter found is that troops’ relationships with robots continue to evolve as the technology changes. Soldiers told her that attachment to their robots didn’t affect their performance, yet acknowledged they felt a range of emotions such as frustration, anger and even sadness when their field robot was destroyed. That makes Carpenter wonder whether outcomes on the battlefield could potentially be compromised by human-robot attachment, or the feeling of self-extension into the robot described by some operators. She hopes the military looks at these issues when designing the next generation of field robots.

Carpenter, who is now turning her dissertation into a book on human-robot interactions, interviewed 23 explosive ordnance personnel – 22 men and one woman – from all over the United States and from every branch of the military.

These troops are trained to defuse chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons, as well as roadside bombs. They provide security for high-ranking officials, including the president, and are a critical part of security at large international events. The soldiers rely on robots to detect, inspect and sometimes disarm explosives, and to do advance scouting and reconnaissance. The robots are thought of as important tools to lessen the risk to human lives.

Some soldiers told Carpenter they could tell who was operating the robot by how it moved. In fact, some robot operators reported they saw their robots as an extension of themselves and felt frustrated with technical limitations or mechanical issues because it reflected badly on them.

The pros to using robots are obvious: They minimize the risk to human life; they’re impervious to chemical and biological weapons; they don’t have emotions to get in the way of the task at hand; and they don’t get tired like humans do. But robots sometimes have technical issues or break down, and they don’t have humanlike mobility, so it’s sometimes more effective for soldiers to work directly with explosive devices.

Researchers have previously documented just how attached people can get to inanimate objects, be it a car or a child’s teddy bear. While the personnel in Carpenter’s study all defined a robot as a mechanical tool, they also often anthropomorphized them, assigning robots human or animal-like attributes, including gender, and displayed a kind of empathy toward the machines.

“They were very clear it was a tool, but at the same time, patterns in their responses indicated they sometimes interacted with the robots in ways similar to a human or pet,” Carpenter said.

Many of the soldiers she talked to named their robots, usually after a celebrity or current wife or girlfriend (never an ex). Some even painted the robot’s name on the side. Even so, the soldiers told Carpenter the chance of the robot being destroyed did not affect their decision-making over whether to send their robot into harm’s way.

Soldiers told Carpenter their first reaction to a robot being blown up was anger at losing an expensive piece of equipment, but some also described a feeling of loss.

“They would say they were angry when a robot became disabled because it is an important tool, but then they would add ‘poor little guy,’ or they’d say they had a funeral for it,” Carpenter said. “These robots are critical tools they maintain, rely on, and use daily. They are also tools that happen to move around and act as a stand-in for a team member, keeping Explosive Ordnance Disposal personnel at a safer distance from harm.”

The robots these soldiers currently use don’t look at all like a person or animal, but the military is moving toward more human and animal lookalike robots, which would be more agile, and better able to climb stairs and maneuver in narrow spaces and on challenging natural terrain. Carpenter wonders how that human or animal-like look will affect soldiers’ ability to make rational decisions, especially if a soldier begins to treat the robot with affection akin to a pet or partner.

“You don’t want someone to hesitate using one of these robots if they have feelings toward the robot that goes beyond a tool,” she said. “If you feel emotionally attached to something, it will affect your decision-making.”

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For more information, contact Carpenter at Julie4@uw.edu.

Soon the robots will be flown to campuses across the country, where they will provide the first common research platform to develop the future of surgical robotics.

Members of the public are invited to view the robots at an open house Friday, Jan. 13, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the UWs Electrical Engineering Building.

After a round of final tests, five of the systems will be shipped to medical robotics researchers at Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of California, Los Angeles. The other two systems will remain at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and UW.

“With everyone working on the same, open-source platform we can more easily share new developments and innovations,â€� said 91̽»¨electrical engineering professor .

While some groups have built their own devices, this slows progress in the field.

“Researchers and funding agencies are tired of one-off robots – they want to pursue projects that use standardized platforms,â€� Hannaford said. “This is where the field is going.â€�

The 91̽»¨group is making its software work with the , a popular open-source robotics code, so groups can easily connect the Raven to .

The robots were developed by Hannaford and , a former 91̽»¨faculty member who is now an associate professor of computer engineering at UC Santa Cruz.

Until now, most research on surgical robotics in the United States has meant creating new software for commercial robots.

“Academic researchers have had limited access to these proprietary systems,â€� Rosen said. “We are changing that by providing high-quality hardware developed within academia. Each lab will start with an identical, fully operational system, but they can change the hardware and software and share new developments and algorithms, while retaining intellectual property rights for their own innovations.â€�

A grant from the National Science Foundation paid for the new devices.

The original Raven robot was completed in 2005 and used for 91̽»¨research on , in which commands are sent over the Internet.

The latest version, the Raven II, has more compact electronics and dexterous hands that can hold wristed surgical tools, like the newest commercial machines. A surgeon sitting at a screen can look through Ravens cameras and guide the instruments to perform a task such as suturing. The system, while not approved by the Food and Drug Administration, is precise enough to support research on advanced robotic-surgery techniques.

The new robots were designed and built by Rosens group in Santa Cruz. The 91̽»¨group built the electronics and software; undergraduates helped wire circuit boards, assemble the electronic components and perform tests.

The hope is that the common, open-source platform will allow research groups to share software, replicate experiments and collaborate. Participating schools specialties include:

• Harvard mechanical engineers working on “beating-heartâ€� surgery, where a robot compensates for the movement of a beating heart so a surgeon can operate as if on a static surface.

• Johns Hopkins computer scientists working on image analysis, superimposing the surgeons field of view on standard medical images.

• 91̽»¨research on force feedback, using machine intelligence to create barriers around things a surgeon needs to avoid, and attractive force fields around objects the surgeon wants to touch.

All projects are aimed at speeding up procedures, reducing errors and improving patient outcomes.

Four more universities are already in line to get the system. The original Raven robot will move to 91̽»¨Medicines for use by medical researchers there.

“I see huge potential in surgical robotics for incorporating new instruments, more procedures, allowing for remote surgeries, and doing collaborative surgery between multiple surgeons in different locations,â€� said collaborator Dr. , a 91̽»¨associate professor of urology and a pediatric urologist at Seattle Childrens Hospital. “Having everyone working on the same, open-source robot will help to make these happen more quickly.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HenM1i1x6zI

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For more information, contact Hannaford at blake@uw.edu or 206-543-2197, and Rosen at rosen@soe.ucsc.edu or 831-459-5302.

More information is on the groups . Also see the .