There is a new multi-million-dollar program in place locally that will help transform understanding of the Earth’s oceans.
The Joint Oceanographic Institutions (JOI) has awarded a $97.7 million contract to an academic partnership led by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), to support the development, installation and initial operation of the coastal and global components of the National Science Foundation’s Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI).
The WHOI partnership includes Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, and Oregon State University’s (OSU) College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences.
This award completes the management team to construct and implement the $331.5 million OOI Network.
“This initiative is a major investment that will transform our understanding of the ocean,” said Steven Bohlen, JOI president. “It will contribute to tremendous advances in our understanding of how Earth works.”
The OOI network will span the entire Earth and is linked by what the JOI calls “cyberinfrastructure.”
Scripps and OSU will make the network happen.
Each partner is to contribute scientific and engineering expertise to the development of a range of technologically equipped moored buoys, cabled nodes and autonomous vehicles that will provide users with data in real-time or near-real-time.
The network will also allow users to remotely control their instruments and construct virtual observatories specifically tailored to their scientific needs.
The initial 67-month contract is valued at $97.7 million and contains options for five years of operation and maintenance, which would bring total funding for WHOI and its partners to more than $200 million.
The Raytheon corporation will provide project management and systems engineering support to WHOI, and industry partners Technip and Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) will assist in the design of a high-performance moored platform for the OOI Network.
Jim Luyten, acting president and director of WHOI, said that technology advances give the team the tools it needs to advance the study of oceanography.
“These systems will provide us the ability to continuously monitor the ocean over time and space,” Luyten said.
The buoys will help monitor and address large scale problems in critical high-latitude locations in both the northern and southern hemispheres. Buoys will also be deployed off the Pacific Northwest coast of the U.S. and in the Mid-Atlantic area to help monitor coastal areas.
A major goal of the global observatory system is to help better understand and predict the impact of potential climate change within Earth’s oceans. It will also address changes in the marine ecosystems typically neglected in remote, poorly monitored areas of Earth.
“The ability to make long-term measurements in the coastal and global ocean provides an opportunity to truly understand ocean variability, hazards and climate change in response to natural events and human activity,” said Tony Haymet, director of Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
Haymet said the OOI is a new way to capture vital information about the oceans.
“It’s a network spanning global, regional and coastal scales,” he said. “This is an ongoing, national, multi-institutional program with some pieces in place already and others that have yet to be designed. Installing the infrastructure and bringing the fully functioning system on-line will span a decade with phases of development, deployment and long-term data usage.”
Haymet explained the three major components to this system. The first consists of regional cabled observatories. The University of Washington was awarded a contract for the planning phase of this system.
Next are the global/coastal observatories, for which a contract was awarded in August to a partnership including Woods Hole, Scripps and Oregon State University.
“The third piece is the cyberinfrastructure that will tie the system together into one cohesive unit,” Haymet said. “It was awarded in May to Scripps Oceanography, UCSD’s Calit2 and the San Diego Supercomputer Center. The cyberinfrastructure will transport real-time data streams, from a variety of ocean-dwelling sensors and other instruments that will be available via dedicated, high-speed Internet links to every researcher, teacher or citizen.”
“By providing real-time, continuous access to the sea through the Internet, the OOI will transform ocean research and education,” said Mark Abbott, dean of OSU/COAS.
Abbott feels that ocean exploration and research will no longer be limited to scientists. Everyone with a connection to the web will be able to access these undersea networks.
“While the system is primarily being designed for use by researchers, there will be a strong outreach component focused on making the data and tools available to educators, students and the general public, who will be able to join scientists as they explore the ocean, with access to video and data via the Internet,” Haymet said. “OOI science educators are investigating a variety of methods for delivering these data, images and animations to non-scientific audiences, including the use of online virtual learning environments, interactive, digital media-based exhibits at science centers such as the Birch Aquarium at Scripps and online learning modules for formal classroom settings and web-based courses.”
New software tools and streaming data for researchers will probably start to appear on the OOI research site later in 2008.
“Too, the average user will primarily be exposed to this initiative through the virtual field trips to the ocean depths,” Haymet said. “People will also be able to download screensavers interactive presentations, video clips and news articles that will be featured on the main OOI website as new data and scientific findings are released.”
This type of system has been long in coming.
“The time to implement a long-term global observing system is now. We have the right suite of tools, technology and scientific capacity to build and sustain this endeavor now more than ever,” Haymet said. “It is a result of a combination of breakthroughs that have happened together: the sensors to measure what we have always wanted to know about the ocean, the ability to handle vast quantities of data, and, frankly, apparently little things like good batteries with a lifetime long enough to operate at sea and in cold water.”
Haymet said that the biggest challenge for his team is managing its expectations.
“We are in the middle of a revolution, and we have to realize we can’t do everything,” he said. “But, especially with the global system, we can do more by partnering with other countries. For now, we will be targeting and developing specific pieces of the OOI project right around the corner.
“This is a very exciting time for ocean science. Go take a look at the existing websites and watch the access to the data ramp up.”
Internet access to these organizations: OOI, www.orion
program.org/OOI/; JOI,www.joiscience.org/ocean_observing; Ocean.US, www.ocean.us; GEO, www.earth.