Global Underwater Observatories: The New Frontier

The OOI of Ocean Observatory Initiative is a project funded by the National Science Foundation, and “is planned as a networked infrastructure of science-driven sensor systems to measure the physical, chemical, geological and biological variables in the ocean and seafloor”. It is a fully integrated network used for collecting data on a regional, coastal and global scale. The OOI is making real time ocean-observing data available to oceanographers, scientists and researchers, educators and the public. The first OOI data streams will be from coastal gliders and are expected to be available in 2012. All core infrastructure and instruments will be online by late 2014. There are a number of organizations that have been responsible for the development of the project including: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Oregon State University and Scripps Institute of Oceanography who are responsible for the coastal and global moorings and their autonomous vehicles. TheUniversity of Washington is responsible for cabled seafloor systems and moorings. The University of California, San Diego, is implementing the cyber infrastructure component. Rutgers, The State University of new Jersey with its partners University of Maine and Ratheon Missions Operations, is responsible for the education and public engagement software infrastructure. The initiative is a program funded by NSF to provide 25-30 years of sustained ocean research and data collection. The global component includes a network of buoys that will support sensors for a series of measurements that will reflect the oceans role in climate change. The focus of regional scale ocean observatories is to provide long-term and adaptive access to measurements of geological and oceanographic phenomena at a regional scale. The coastal OOI is comprised of two arrays. The Endurance Array will be located in the Northeast Pacific off the coast of Washington and Oregon. The Pioneer Array will be located in the Northwest Atlantic off the coast of New England. The system will improve the rate and scale of ocean data collection. The program is managed and coordinated by the Consortium for Ocean Leadership.