Dean Franklin Bumpus (1912-2002), an oceanographer employed by the Woods Gap Oceanographic Establishment (WHOI), introduced an illustrious profession with accomplishments starting from marine life surveys to complicated present information assortment nonetheless in use at the moment.
Throughout his tenure at WHOI, the place finally he would attain the title of Scientist Emeritus, Bumpus accomplished what many contemplate to be the primary complete survey of marine life in Georges Financial institution, a big elevated space of the ocean ground between Cape Cod, Massachusetts and Cape Sable Island, Nova Scotia, Canada. With information collected throughout the 1939-1941 Atlantis survey, Bumpus collaborated with George Clarke to supply a three-dimensional information set for plankton, larval fish, and hydrography over two winter/spring intervals. The Clark-Bumpus plankton sampler continues to be of worth greater than 60 years later to biologists engaged on Georges Financial institution throughout the International Ocean Ecosystem Dynamics (GLOBEC) program.
Dean Bumpus’s profession in oceanography wasn’t restricted solely to the civilian sector, as throughout World Conflict II Dean, alongside Allyn Vine, he instructed U.S. submariners on the bathythermograph, an instrument that assisted in measuring and using temperature and density gradients of sub-surface water to keep away from acoustic detection by enemy vessels. Throughout and instantly following the battle, Bumpus labored with the Workplace of Scientific Analysis and Improvement on submarine warfare, in addition to heading the Oceanographic Help workplace for Radiological Security Reconnaissance as part of Operation Crossroads in 1946, the nuclear weapon check collection performed in at Bikini Atoll within the Marshall Islands.
Maybe his most notable achievement, was the end result of years spent monitoring floor and backside currents within the western North Atlantic via use of floor drift bottles and seabed drifters. Positioned in varied areas alongside the North Atlantic currents, Bumpus relied on “return to sender” notes positioned throughout the bottles to trace last locations. Though the precise quantity of floor drifters stays unknown, 165,566 bottles have been launched throughout the 1960’s alone by ships and planes, with an extra 75,485 seabed drifters. Knowledge collected from each devices has offered invaluable info of floor and backside circulation alongside the continental shelf of japanese North America. Drift bottles are nonetheless returned every now and then to WHOI.
Lengthy-time colleagues bear in mind Bumpus as a beneficiant, good-natured, and exuberant man whose traits introduced a heat depth to WHOI. In his skilled setting, Bumpus has been said as a “WHOI corridor of famer” and as “one of many actual WHOI giants of the early days.”
U.S. Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command directs and oversees greater than 2,500 globally-distributed navy and civilian personnel who acquire, course of and exploit environmental info to help Fleet and Joint Commanders in all warfare areas to make higher selections, based mostly on assured environmental info, quicker than the adversary.
