Sustained Ocean Observations and the Role of NOAA's Marine Observation Network

Abstract

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) operates a network of automated moored buoys in the oceans whose installation began in the early 1970s. What began as a research and development program consolidating independent U.S. buoy projects, by the mid-1980s evolved into an operational activity when the National Data Buoy Center (NDBC) was moved into NOAA's National Weather Service (NWS). Except for a few reimbursable projects requiring ocean data, little effort was placed on sustained ocean monitoring, as NDBC focused upon satisfying NWS' mission requirements. NOAA's recent direction to become a “matrix” organization is leading to greater utilization of assets across its line offices. NDBC and its Marine Observing Network (MON) of moored buoys and fixed stations have become recognized as NOAA assets that can help meet NOAA-wide strategic goals. This paper describes some of NDBC's history and the future role it can play as part of a federal “backbone” system to support scientific needs of the community that works in the oceans.

The Bintan MOS development: contribution of ideas to realize Nusantara marine observation network

“…Data collection on the field, especially in marine waters, has its own challenges as the samples obtained are usually few, expensive, require a lot of time and high level of difficulty (Glenn et al, 2000). Therefore, an extended real-time monitoring is the best solution to fully understand the dynamics of these changes and the resultant impacts on coastal and marine resources (Moersdorf and Meindl, 2003;Ruberg et al, 2007;Lynch et al, 2014).…”

MODELING PHYTOPLANKTON ABUNDANCE IN SAGINAW BAY, LAKE HURON: USING ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORKS TO DISCERN FUNCTIONAL INFLUENCE OF ENVIRONMENTAL VARIABLES AND RELEVANCE TO A GREAT LAKES OBSERVING SYSTEM1

“…Coastal assessment programs typically have depended upon adaptive, invasive sampling with its intermittent data acquisition, resulting in discontinuous “snapshots” of the ecological continuum. These programs have become increasingly reliant upon autonomous data acquisition often integrated across multi‐platform sampling networks and observatories, with their potential for real‐time interpretation of system‐level variability (Dickey 2003, Moersdorf and Meindl 2003, Schofield and Tivey 2004, Paerl et al 2005). Microelectronic‐based probes/sensors (biological, chemical, physical) and fixed/transportable sampling platforms are evolving technologies, providing a never‐before recognized sampling resolution across ecological, system, and organismal scales.…”