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The Origin of SEACOOS

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The SEACOOS observing system is to be one of the regional systems ringing the U.S. to form the coastal component of the Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS).

The

The SEACOOS domain encompasses the coastal oceans of and off Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina, from head of tide inland to the seaward boundary of the Exclusive Economic Zone (indicated by the red line).

More about SEACOOS

In May of 2000, the Chief of Naval Research, the Administrator of NOAA, and the President of the Consortium for Ocean Research and Education announced the formation of OCEAN.US, an organization dedicated to the formation of an integrated and sustainable ocean observation system.

The vision for this ocean observation system requires that observing systems scattered across the country cooperate to “collect and disseminate data and data products to serve the critical and expanding needs of environmental protection, public health, industry, education, research, and recreation� (from the September 30, 2003, draft of the IOOS Executive Summary). The SouthEast Atlantic Coastal Ocean Observing System (SEACOOS) is to be a part of this larger IOOS system.

The planning workshop held in Miami, 27 – 29 June 2001 (report) began the process of building a regional observing system for the Southeast. Ultimately, the system will enhance and expand existing observing systems, test and develop needed sensor support infrastructure such as data transmission and power systems, develop data management capabilities such as Web-based regional DODS servers and a gateway for data and metadata to national repositories, and develop data-assimilative model products. Because these components are required by any and all coastal observing networks, the advances made within this project serve to benefit the development of the national system.

But what exactly is the national interest in the development of an IOOS? The answer is clear: IOOS will greatly improve the decision-making process for coastal managers, severe weather response teams, and all others in whose decisions coastal conditions are a factor; and as such the system will greatly improve the quality of life in the coastal zone. Over the last decade there has been an international effort to define how this should happen, called the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS). It has identified a number of societal ‘themes’ that require improved information:

  • Marine operations (e.g. shipping, ofshore operations like drilling and mining)
  • Natural hazard mitigation (e.g. storm forecasting, surge prediction, tsunami warning)
  • Climate change and its effects (e.g. interannual variability in water temperature, salinity, nutrients, storminess, plankton species and abundance, fish species and abundance)
  • National security (e.g. toxin trajectories, detection of covert operations)
  • Public health (e.g. unsafe biological activity, rip currents, harmful algal blooms)
  • Assessing ecosystem health (e.g. changes in food web structure)
  • Sustained use of marine resources (e.g. fish stock assessments)