- Educators
- Commercial Shippers/Mariners
- Resource Managers
- Fishers & Mariners
- Search & Rescue/Security
- Scientists
- Recreationists
Emergency managers making evacuation decisions amid an approaching storm, recreational fishers out in their boats, and coastal communities concerned about sea level rise all need the same thing - reliable and timely access to ocean data. MACOORA and its operating arm MARCOOS provide necessary ocean data and information for wise decision-making. MACOORA focuses on four major areas: inundation, maritime (and homeland) security, ecological decision support (for example, fisheries), and water quality (see ioos applicaton - pdf)
User groups include, but are not limited to, educators, the shipping industry, natural resource managers, commercial and recreational fishers, search & rescue operators and homeland security, scientists, and recreationists. A matrix of user groups, the data they use, and the ocean observation that provides the data, can be seen here
Educators
One major expected user group is K- 12 educators and their students, who will be able to explore and utilize data and information from coastal observing systems in real time from the classroom. For the first time, there will be continuous, sustained, near-realtime, multi-dimensional data available from the oceans,collected both from within the oceans using sensors systems and above using remote sensing methodologies. These data make possible inquiry-driven questions concerning the dynamic nature of the ocean’s physical, biological and chemical characteristics in both time and space.
For an in-depth report on observations and educators, click here
For the nation the coming ocean observing system promises an unprecedented opportunity to change both the public perception of our oceans, and to inspire, captivate and motivate our children, our young adults and even our fellow adults to pursue careers allied with the oceans, and to become stewards of this our last most unexplored environment. (more here)
Using Real-Time Data (RTD) in K-12 Classrooms is critical for teachers. An in-depth study (view pdf) made the following recommendations:
Target Audience
The K-12 target audience for RTD education product(s) should be middle-school and high-school students and teachers, and if prioritizing between those two, the first priority should be middle-school students and teachers.
Vision & Goals
RTD brings the real world into the classroom and it is the main reason teachers use RTD in their lessons. This “real world” connection should be a key part of the vision and goals for education products based on RTD.
The Content: Data
The design/development of a RTD education product should, at least initially, be based on the data types that teachers currently use, which will make their use of the product more likely. The top ones teachers currently use are: temperature (air & water), pH, salinity, dissolved oxygen and currents.
Product Format & Features
The design of a RTD education product should incorporate a number of features such as page lots of visually based explanations (illustrations, pictures, graphics) and data visualizations, but simple in design.
Barriers & Challenges
The greatest barrier to this product for teachers is the disconnect between the potential for RTD in exciting/connecting students to the real world and the reality of today’s K-12 teaching environment with state standards and high-stakes testing.
Emergency managers making evacuation decisions amid an approaching storm, recreational fishers out in their boats, and coastal communities concerned about sea level rise all need the same thing - reliable and timely access to ocean data. MACOORA and its operating arm MARCOOS provide necessary ocean data and information for wise decision-making. MACOORA focuses on four major areas: inundation, maritime (and homeland) security, ecological decision support (for example, fisheries), and water quality (see ioos applicaton - pdf)
User groups include, but are not limited to, educators, the shipping industry, natural resource managers, commercial and recreational fishers, search & rescue operators and homeland security, scientists, and recreationists. A matrix of user groups, the data they use, and the ocean observation that provides the data, can be seen here
Commercial Shippers & Mariners
Ocean Observations provide regional-scale assessments of oceanographic conditions as well as nearshore and offshore bathymetry and onshore topography, data that are critical to the maritime industry. Observations are necessary for optimizing ship routing, supporting severe weather planning, oil spill and other contingency preparation and response, transportation pathway optimization, and maritime safety.
Ocean observations are used for:
• Determining the best possible route for tankers and other vessels in regards to weather conditions, the oceanographic environment, and existing vessel traffic• Planning onshore and offshore infrastructure according to the risks posed by severe weather, historic hurricane trajectories, and current and eddy forecasting
• Improving storm track and hurricane landfall forecasts
• Enhancing short-term fog and precipitation forecasts to prevent accidents and help with scheduling.
• Improving the accuracy of high-resolution coastal topography
Emergency managers making evacuation decisions amid an approaching storm, recreational fishers out in their boats, and coastal communities concerned about sea level rise all need the same thing - reliable and timely access to ocean data. MACOORA and its operating arm MARCOOS provide necessary ocean data and information for wise decision-making. MACOORA focuses on four major areas: inundation, maritime (and homeland) security, ecological decision support (forexample, fisheries), and water quality (see ioos applicaton - pdf)
User groups include, but are not limited to, educators, the shipping industry, natural resource managers, commercial and recreational fishers, search &rescue operators and homeland security, scientists, and recreationists. A matrix of user groups, the data they use, and the ocean observation that provides the data, can be seen here
Resource Managers
Hypothetical and real-time data from models help coastal officials determine which areas should be evacuated according to storm surge probabilities. High-resolution topographic data are used to monitor shoreline erosion and accretion, calculate storm surge levels, conduct flood risk analyses, and address issues such as coastal development and resource management. Tide and water level information can be used to determine potential storm surge and wave heights for locations in the path of a storm.
Inundation
The NOAA Storm Surge Leadership Team and a MACOORA Coastal Managers Workshop determined from coastal stakeholder comments that improvements are required in the resolution and accuracy of storm-surge forecasting and improved integration of surge and overland flood models down to the street level.
Local inundation projects require information on the regional scale of storms that can be enhanced with even higher resolution models. Local inundation models require surface forcing fields, boundary conditions from regional atmospheric/ocean models for nesting, and datasets for assimilation, including surface and subsurface temperature structure to improve estimates of upper ocean heat content, thickness of the wind-driven layer, and current/drifter data for assimilation to improve the surface layer response. Nested models for winds, waves and currents will then be run by the inundation groups to provide local guidance on water levels, wind speeds and wave heights.
Water Quality
Water quality at a given location depends both on the advection into or out of the area as well as local processes. Advection in many locations requires knowledge of the regional response to wind and buoyancy driven flows. Real-time surface circulation maps and forecasts provided by MARCOORA will help coastal managers concerned with water quality better understand where the water in their area is coming from, and where it is going.
Buoyant coastal currents in the Mid-Atlantic are fed by many urbanized rivers, which provide anthropogenic inputs into coastal waters. Nutrient and organic matter loadings fuel hypoxia/anoxia, a focus of some sub-regional proposals which will benefit from information on shelf circulation, density structure, waves and sea surface heights.
3-D fields for ecological decision support include Satellite Data Acquisition and Processing, Regional Sustained Subsurface Glider Operations, Dynamical 3-D Forecast Ensemble, Education & Outreach for New Fisheries Support Products, Economic Impacts Assessment.
Primary users of MACOORA’s 3-D circulation and temperature fields are the recreational, commercial and management fisheries communities. Benefits are improved management of marine living resources, and the economic savings of reduced fuel consumption and search time for fishing operations.
Commercial and recreational fishing represent a multi-billion dollar industry in the Middle Atlantic. Management of these resources is difficult as many of the species are migratory and poorly sampled using traditional strategies. An integrated regional perspective is required. Timing and migration patterns of living marine resources are strongly influenced by the structure of water properties. Unless regional hydrography is mapped on at least monthly time scales, it is difficult to assess the efficacy of fisheries management approaches based on marine protected areas, no fishing areas, marine reserves, and rotating closures.
Regional hydrography and circulation from MARCOOS observations and models will facilitate analysis of the movement of water masses and their associated populations, assisting the interpretation of population breeding dynamics and connectivity. For species with mobile adult stages, retention-through-migration can effectively counteract the dispersing effect of physics. Species with less mobile juvenile or adult life stages (e.g. sea scallops) depend on circulation processes to maintain them within their habitat range.
For example, scallops, the 2ndhighest ex-vessel revenue in the Northeast fishery, contribute $431.5 million annually to the domain. MARCOOS modeling will provide spatial patterns of the physical ocean to fishery managers for use in their individual-based models of larval dispersal, settlement and recruitment.
Many commercial pelagic species aggregate within or at frontal boundaries between water masses with physical, chemical or biological signatures. These fronts are visible in present webserved satellite products, with fishers the majority user of the existing Rutgers observatory web pages. Web-served surface spatial information is also used by NOAA NFMS for adaptive sampling of fisheries.
The second most requested data product is subsurface temperature and salinity fields. Subsurface data is needed because of their relevance to population distributions. For example, bottom temperatures can impact the survival of larval and juvenile shellfish and fish. Long-term changes are being increasingly implicated in changes in migration patterns of species and shifts in historical fishing areas.
The MARCOOS goal to provide 3D pictures of water masses in near real-time support these user needs. To accomplish this, we will use a multi-platform approach of proven technologies, including satellites, gliders, and data assimilative models to integrate into synoptic fields. Satellites provide maps of surface temperature, chlorophyll a, and a suite of existing ocean color products, such as absorption and backscatter. Satellite information will be fed into objective water mass classification algorithms being developed through NASA. Gliders, operated by the Mid Atlantic Glider Consortium (Rutgers University, University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, University of Maryland, and University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) will measure the month-to-month changes in the 3-D water property structures over the Mid Atlantic.
Gliders will be outfitted to measure temperature, salinity, currents, chlorophyll a fluorescence, particle backscatter, and, while surfaced, waves. Combined satellite and glider data will be assimilated into numerical circulation models, each with different assimilation schemes. Comparisons of this ensemble of 3D realizations will be used with measurements to estimate uncertainties. The model realizations will be used to characterize 3D water mass patterns for Web display. Ecological Decision-Support Audience: Primary MARCOOS regional products for Ecological Decision Support for Fisheries are 3D temperature and circulation fields. These primary products include both real time data (satellite surface maps and subsurface glider data) and model predictions from the ensemble of data-assimilative forecast models. Users include recreational, commercial and management fishing groups.
Real-time data needs include adaptive sampling for fisheries management and continued analyses of fishery cruise results to relate stock distributions to the environment. Adaptive sampling is facilitated by web access from shore support sites or fisheries vessels using cell phones. Both methods have been used to coordinate fisheries sampling in the Mid Atlantic. An important aspect of adaptive sampling is real-time feedback between vessels at sea and gliders. As recently demonstrated, a regional glider flight from Mass. to NJ broke away from its mission to assist a fisheries vessel by flying repeat sections along the same cross-shelf sampling transect. Fisheries managers are sophisticated users of ocean data and will require little more than background training on access and quality.
Emergency managers making evacuation decisions amid an approaching storm, recreational fishers out in their boats, and coastal communities concerned about sea level rise all need the same thing - reliable and timely access to ocean data. MACOORA and its operating arm MARCOOS provide necessary ocean data and information for wise decision-making. MACOORA focuses on four major areas: inundation, maritime (and homeland) security, ecological decision support (for example, fisheries), and water quality (see ioos applicaton - pdf)
User groups include, but are not limited to, educators, the shipping industry, natural resource managers, commercial and recreational fishers, search & rescue operators and homeland security, scientists, and recreationists. A matrix of user groups, the data they use, and the ocean observation that provides the data, can be seen here
Fishers & Mariners
Fisheries Outreach Activities
Jeff Yapalater talks about the data products from MACOORA that aid recreational fishers in weather forecasts, SST, temp breaks, and more info for offshore tuna fishing (watch)
MARCOOS scientists have organized several outreach activities aimed at Fisheries. A meeting between NMFS Scientists, MARCOOS, NERACOOS, and the NSF OOI Coastal and Cyberinfrastructure Implementing Organizations occurred in August of 2008 in Rhode Island; a plan was formulated for MARCOOS glider sampling and model assimilation studies timed to coincide with the NMFS spring and fall regional sampling cruises
We are in the process of collaborating with the National Marine Fisheries Service to provide maps of pelagic habitats derived from ocean color to fisheries managers. In this joint project with NMFS-Sandy Hook, we are hypothesizing that our satellite derived pelagic habitat maps will be good predictors of NMFS trawl data and will be a significant ecological decision making tool. We have delivered historical SST, chlorophyll and Ocean Color products to NMFS for ecological indicator analysis.
We have also started producing temporal averages (both 8-day and 3-day) of SST. This allows us to estimate and map the variability of SST. Variability of SST over these short time scales shows where ecological fronts may be located. We have been advised by local fishermen that these short term fronts are of great interest.
Both 8-day and 3-day images are being delivered to the web for public use:
(http://marine.rutgers.edu/mrs/sat_data/?product=sst_decloud_3dayavg®ion=bigbight¬humbs=0
Useful Website Links and Resources
Temperature Sites http://marine.rutgers.edu/cool/sat_data/?product=sst®ion=nybight¬humbs=0
Weather
-Offshore
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/marine/zone/wrdoffmz.htm
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/dsdt/cwtg/catl.html
http://weather.noaa.gov/fax/marshlatest.shtml
http://www.hurricanecity.com/
-Inshore
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/marine/zone/east/okxmz.htm
http://www.erh.noaa.gov/ndfd/graphical/sectors/okxMarineDay.php#tabs
-Buoy Status
http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/stations.shtml
Emergency managers making evacuation decisions amid an approaching storm, recreational fishers out in their boats, and coastal communities concerned about sea level rise all need the same thing - reliable and timely access to ocean data. MACOORA and its operating arm MARCOOS provide necessary ocean data and information for wise decision-making. MACOORA focuses on four major areas: inundation, maritime (and homeland) security, ecological decision support (for example, fisheries), and water quality (see ioos applicaton - pdf)
User groups include, but are not limited to, educators, the shipping industry, natural resource managers, commercial and recreational fishers, search & rescue operators and homeland security, scientists, and recreationists. A matrix of user groups, the data they use, and the ocean observation that provides the data, can be seen here
Search & Rescue Operators
Maritime Safety is a key concern in the Mid-Atlantic and the observing system provides a number of products that aid in search and rescue operations. For information on SAROPS, the search and rescue optimal planning system, click here (ppt) .
Surface Currents for Maritime Safety
• Statistical Surface Current Forecasts
• Regional Weather Data and Forecasts
• Dynamical Surface Current Forecast Ensemble
• Surface Current Evaluation with Drifters
• Outreach to Rip Current Forecasting Community
• Economic Impacts Assessment
The initial primary user of the 2-D surface currents will be United States Coast Guard search and rescue operations. The benefits include reduced search time, more lives saved, and more time available for law enforcement missions.
The primary user of the nearshore wave and current product, enabled by the 26 CODAR sites is the National Weather Service. The benefit will be improved forecasts of rip current probabilities. In the event of a search, the alongshore current product could be used by the weather forecasting operations to assist emergency response personnel in determining the speed and direction of alongshore drift.
Search and rescue operators
A maritime safety issue is rip currents, which are the primary cause of ocean drowning and rescue incidents along U.S. coasts. According to the U.S. Lifesaving Association (USLA), 71% of the total surf zone rescues (12,137 incidents) in 2003 were due to rip currents. As demonstrated by NOAA Sea Grant research and recognized by the NWS, HF Radar provides wave/current information that improves rip current forecasting.
The primary users are the USCG and NOAA HAZMAT. Both require surface current products to be delivered into centralized operation centers and loaded into tactical decision aids. USCG SAR users are the operational controllers that direct deployment of aircraft and vessels using an operational decision aid called SAROPS. SAROPS uses observed or predicted surface wind and surface current fields from the USCG’s EDS to predict the trajectories of floating objects. During an actual event, or test, a cluster of a few hundred virtual objects is deployed in surface wind and current fields downloaded from EDS and allowed to drift over time. The cluster disperses based on the uncertainty estimates in the winds and currents. If SAROPS data has lower uncertainties there is lower dispersion in the cluster, a smaller search area, and greater likelihood for success. NOAA HAZMAT operations have similar decision aids.
HAZMAT is collaborating with the USCG to link EDS and HAZMAT oil spill drift models. Other Maritime Safety products enabled by the HF Radar network are nearshore waves and alongshore currents being developed with SeaGrant. Where available, these products are already used by the Mount Holly Weather Forecasting Office. The WFOs presently use observed and forecast surface waves to predict the probability of rip currents as low, medium or high. In the event of a nearshore search emergency, the direction of the alongshore drift is then the key unknown.
Assessing the Public’s Awareness and Understanding of Rip Currents at Wrightsville Beach, Carolina Beach and Kure Beach in New Hanover County, North Carolina, USA: Download the rip current report here (pdf)
Emergency managers making evacuation decisions amid an approaching storm, recreational fishers out in their boats, and coastal communities concerned about sea level rise all need the same thing - reliable and timely access to ocean data. MACOORA and its operating arm MARCOOS provide necessary ocean data and information for wise decision-making. MACOORA focuses on four major areas: inundation, maritime (and homeland) security, ecological decision support (for example, fisheries), and water quality (see ioos applicaton - pdf)
User groups include, but are not limited to, educators, the shipping industry, natural resource managers, commercial and recreational fishers, search & rescue operators and homeland security, scientists, and recreationists. A matrix of user groups, the data they use, and the ocean observation that provides the data, can be seen here
Scientists
Scientists who use ocean data include: climatologists, meteorologists, biologists, chemists, geologists, and oceanographers.
Emergency managers making evacuation decisions amid an approaching storm, recreational fishers out in their boats, and coastal communities concerned about sea level rise all need the same thing - reliable and timely access to ocean data. MACOORA and its operating arm MARCOOS provide necessary ocean data and information for wise decision-making. MACOORA focuses on four major areas: inundation, maritime (and homeland) security, ecological decision support (for example, fisheries), and water quality (see ioos applicaton - pdf)
User groups include, but are not limited to, educators, the shipping industry, natural resource managers, commercial and recreational fishers, search & rescue operators and homeland security, scientists, and recreationists. A matrix of user groups, the data they use, and the ocean observation that provides the data, can be seen here
Recreationists
The United States Lifesaving Association estimates that the annual number of deaths due to rip currents on US beaches exceeds 100. Rip currents account for over 80% of rescues performed by surf beach lifeguards. In order to warn bathers of the potential danger of rip currents, the local National Weather Service forecast offices in the MARCOOS region started, in 2004, to issue low, medium and high rip current risk level advisories based on observed wave condition offshore of the forecast area. NOAA-Sea Grant and NOAA-National Weather Service convened a technical workshop on rip current research and forecasting in April 2004, in Jacksonville, Florida, to enhance communication and information sharing among National Weather Service forecasters, coastal research scientists, and Sea Grant outreach personnel.
The workshop helped each agency identify data gaps, partnership opportunities and future research needs to enhance and improve rip current prediction and forecasting. An additional outcome of the technical workshop was the engagement of the local stakeholders through informational workshops and symposiums. New Jersey Sea Grant in partnership with MARCOOS partners conducted lifeguard symposiums in 2006 and 2008 in Ocean City, NJ, to build an awareness of MARCOOS data and products, and solicit input from surf rescue personal on information needs and delivery requirements.
Outcomes from the two symposia indicate that New Jersey lifeguard groups receive weather and ocean forecast 28 information through the local NWS forecast office and that there is great interest in integrating MARCOOS observations and forecasts into the data products issued by NWS.
Rip current generation is a function of wave breaking and its strength related to the residual forcing between the mass transport of water by waves into the surf zone and the resulting pressure gradient generated by elevated water level (wave setup) inshore of the bar system. With the advent of Coastal Ocean Observation Systems, the ability to continuously monitor the coastal ocean environment holds promise for real-time detection and of rip currents.
MARCOOS data products for the near shore region including CODAR derived waves and currents are being evaluated for various applications. These include water quality along the beach, tracking floatable spill events, and monitoring conditions related to rip current occurrence. An analysis of rip current events along the New Jersey coastline during the summers of 2003 and 2004 indicate that the New Jersey coast is subjected to two modes of rip current events; high-energy large wave height events with heights greater than 6 feet and low-energy, long period swell events.
This suggests that the rate of wave energy propagation to the coast is an important parameter in the prediction of rip current frequency. To forecast rip current potential, an index scheme has been developed that will be coupled to the operational NYHOPS wave forecast module of MARCOOS. Integration of the CODAR data fields with the forecast model will provide real-time observations of rip current parameters at a spatial and temporal resolution refined enough to forecast conditions favorable for rip current activity on the order of 1-6 km.
Recreationists: Surfers, Beach-goers and others
Rip currents have been identified as the second deadliest weather related threat by the National Weather Service (NWS), and claim the lives of over 100 people annually.
MACOORA/MARCOOS is working to reduce that threat through public education and outreach with Mid-Atlantic Sea Grant Programs, and to use CODAR (Coastal Ocean Dynamics Applications Radar) and model forecasts for enhanced detection and prediction. MARCOOS will produce a daily NWS surf zone advisory product to alert beachgoers of risk level, provide advanced warning (24 hours) to lifeguards so they can prepare, and provide real-time updates to alert lifeguards of changing conditions and threat level.