Top Priorities for Additions to the National Backbone

GCOOS has developed priorities for (1) enhancements to the National Backbone in the Gulf of Mexico and (2) enhancements and additions to GCOOS.

Landry Bernard, National Data Buoy Center

  1. From the "Airlie House" report, expansion of the NDBC buoy and C-MAN network was a high priority item. The report discussed the expansion of the network to five times what it is now. (The Ocean.US Office has asked NDBC to give them an estimate for the 5X expansion, which we did.) This expansion addresses a buoy with complete meteorological and oceanographic sensors (chemical or biological sensors could be added).
  2. Another priority item from the "Airlie House" report was to expand the NOS National Water Level Network (NWLON).
  3. DMAC improvements to improve DMAC complaince in the region:
    1. NDBC is working with several Regional Observing Systems and providing a QA/QC and real-time data distribution service using a product we call the "MODEM Kit". In the Gulf of Mexico we are working with TABS, COMPS, TCOON, and LUMCON and would like to expand this activity to include other data providers.
    2. NDBC also places these data sets on a DODS server once a month. We have plans to expand this to real-time on an OPENDAP server, using a Live Access Server as a user interface to keep current with the DMAC guidance.

Jan van Smirren and Dave Szabo, Fugro/GEOS

With respect to our top priorities for additions to the national backbone in the Gulf of Mexico, it is our belief that with respect to the Offshore Oil and Gas Industry, an observing system without currents is a "toothless beast" and will be of very little interest. Therefore we believe that the top priority should be to fit existing buoys, at strategic locations with surface current monitoring devices. If possible additional buoys should be added at strategic locations and finally a pilot project should be undertaken to assess the feasibility of a buoy based full current profiling system for deep water (2,500m). This is something of particular interest to us as we have been doing an immense amount of work on these types of systems over the last 2 years. We see this as highly important.

Satellite based altimeter measurements are an extremely important data sets assimilated into circulation models. However, the accuracy of altimeter data on the continental shelves is not high enough to be used for that purpose. John Blaha, NAVOCEANO, has conducted XBT lines beneath altimeter tracks in the Gulf of Mexico and found large errors that are not yet explained. For this reason measurement of tides at a number of offshore locations on the continental shelf would be extremely useful for real time correction of altimeter data so that they could be used in data assimilation.

One or more numerical models should be added to the national backbone. The benefits of having both high density model data (compared to measured data density) and the capability to forecast currents, would considerably increase the usefulness of GCOOS.

Robert Cohen, Weathernews Oceanroutes

Highest:

  1. Offshore meteorological stations, including wind speed, direction and visibility
  2. Coastal water level stations
  3. Offshore surface currents

Moderate:

  1. Current profiles

Gregg Jacobs, Naval Research Laboratory

  1. Satellite observations are an important part of the national backbone that can feed to all the regional alliances.
    • NRL could provide the real time satellite observations as part of the national backbone:
      • Jason-1 altimeter (SSH, SWH, wind speed)
      • GFO altimeter (SSH, SWH, wind speed)
      • Envisat (SSH, SWH, wind speed)
      • TOPEX interleaved (SSH, SWH, wind speed)
      • MCSST
      • MODAS Terra color
      • MODIS Aqua color
    • Rough cost estimates are $70K to integrate metadata into satellite observations and set up data archive. For out years, $70K to set up interactive data plotting and analysis capability.
  2. Cross-shelf break fluxes for the IOOS are the most difficult to directly observe. Covering the shelf break across the entire GCOOS area at sufficient spatial resolution would be prohibitive. One possible source is global or regional model systems, which can provide this component based on the deep ocean mesoscale observations from satellite and assimilation systems.
  3. Setting up the model analyses and distribution for nested coastal regions would be valuable for coastal model boundary conditions. Presently NRL could use boundary conditions from global NCOM or the higher resolution nested Intra Americas Seas NCOM. In the near future, the global HYCOM model would be providing the information.
    • A rough cost estimate to work with local modelers, determine the appropriate data sets, set up the analyses, and provide the data would require: $100K initially to work with regional modelers to set up the analysis of the global or regional nests, $80K in year two to set up the automated data processing, and $35K in out years to insure continued delivery.
  4. The primary fluxes in/out the shelf/coastal areas should be monitored using long-term instrumentation. The major inflow to the shelf that should be a top priority includes the drainage fluxes of mass, heat, buoyancy, sediments and chemicals from the major rivers and basins. Providing these fluxes will require the instrumentation of rivers and perhaps some larger drainage areas such as the Atchafalaya.
  5. The national CODAR backbone should provide sufficient surface current information (depending on range).
  6. Monitoring properties within and moving through critical areas should be covered next. The critical areas are zones of high impact high variability (hypoxia, red tide, shoreline erosion, ...)

There are two observation capabilities that should be provided through dedicated ship observations:

  1. Persistent surveying of slowly-varying processes (sediment chemical content, bathymetry, ...)
  2. Rapid high density observation capability in response to developing local events.

Note: Obviously there are not sufficient instruments to cover all space and time scales. A sparse network sufficient to provide indication that events are developing would give advanced notification to bring the high density sampling capability quickly to the area. The high resolution sampling capability would consist of the dedicated ship plus several UUV or gliders.

Frank Muller-Karger, University of South Florida

National backbone priorities for coastal satellite remote sensing

Needed are plans for a decade in the future, based on requirements, for the following satellite infrastructure;

  1. Satellites
    1. Biogeochemistry and water quality (BWQ/ocean color)
      Issues:
      • High temporal and spatial variability
      • Dark and submerged features
      • Requirements:
        • High spatial resolution
        • High temporal resolution
        • High spectral resolution (~20 bands)
        • High signal to noise and digitization
        • Concurrent real-time in situ observations of key parameters
    2. Sea Surface Temperature (SST)
    3. Winds
    4. Currents
    5. Waves
  2. Ground systems
    1. Real-time capture
    2. Processing
      • NOAA's ideal role: should be to provide basic calibrated radiances and a real-time data stream.
      • Regional Associations should develop the regional products in partnership with Federal agencies
      • Global products developed by a robust science group with significant community input.
    3. Coordination
  3. Archive
    1. Legacy data (past 25 years)
    2. New data

Paul H. Gross, WDIV-TV, Detroit

  1. Enhanced upper air observations over the EEZ.

This would advance our ability to forecast significant approaching west coast storms, Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic hurricanes and subtropical storms, etc.

Christopher Mooers, RSMAS, University of Miami

Priorities are stated in terms of information needed for model validation, data assimilation, etc., not in terms of the observational technology necessary to obtain the information. The technology likely will evolve in time.

  1. Inflow-outflow at Yucatan Strait (most simply, net volume transport, but eventually T, S and velocity structure) on a continuous basis-at least daily but hourly preferred.
  2. Surface current maps at Dry Tortugas, Yucatan Strait, and Key West-Havana.

Stephan Howden, Steven Lohrenz, Don Redalje, Don Roman, and Denis Wiesenburg; University of Southern Mississippi

The top priorities we see for additions to the national backbone in the Gulf of Mexico are as follows (in no particular order). More stream gauges are needed along the Gulf Coast in order to characterize fresh water input more completely. These data are critical for, among other things, improving operational numerical modeling on the continental shelf. The number of offshore tide gages needs to be increased so that more complete water level monitoring can be done. The Minerals Management Service should require more ADCPs and other oceanographic and meteorological instruments to be installed on oil platforms with real-time, or near real-time, data telemetry. Since the contribution to water level variations of wind relative to tides is larger on the Gulf Coast than on the east and west coasts, more coastal weather stations are needed. Finally, EPA and NOAA surveys should follow the same sampling, documentation, and processing procedures that are used by the academic research community to obtain the greatest benefit from limited resources.

Robert Weisberg, University of South Florida

National Backbone Additions

Figure 1 below summarizes national backbone elements as they presently exist over the southeastern U.S.

Figure 1. National backbone resources over the southeastern United States.

 

The CMAN and NWLON coverage over the eastern Gulf of Mexico is reasonably good; NDBC buoy coverage, however, is sparse. I am of the opinion that the NDBC should be adding buoys in places where local agencies/academics may lack the resources for doing this. Thus, I advocate new NOAA resources where environmental conditions require buoys of magnitude difficult for regional entities to maintain, i.e., in the Loop Current or at the shelf slope where the Loop Current may be anticipated to impact from time to time. It is in these regions where 3m discus or larger buoys are required that are more costly and that academic vessels may have difficulty deploying.

Along with the national backbone the combined COMPS and SEACOOS programs have added in situ measurement stations to the West Florida Shelf as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2. COMPS/SEACOOS in situ array elements on the WFS.

 

Combined with the national backbone moorings the six telemetering COMPS/SEACOOS moorings greatly enhance the coverage on the WFS. COMPS/SEACOOS anticipates another mooring on the shelf break offshore of Panama City, Florida and several near shore stations, further increasing the WFS coverage. The shelf slope and the deep ocean will remain sparse, however. The location denoted by C18 is a subsurface (near bottom) ADCP mooring located on the shelf break at an interesting point of isobath convergence that is occasionally impacted by the Loop Current. This vicinity or a little deeper would be a good candidate for an NDBC buoy for the reasons given above. Similarly a buoy in the Florida Current to the southwest of Key West would be valuable both for currents and for the waves impacting the Florida Keys. In a more general sense NDBC buoys positioned along the shelf slope (say along the 200m isobath) at several locations girdling the Gulf of Mexico (including the head of the DeSoto Canyon) would be valuable for assessing deep-ocean current and surface gravity wave impacts on the adjacent shelves. Since the resources required for shelf slope moorings (possibly in large current and wave regimes) are more stringent and costly than for the moorings positioned on the shelf break or the shelf proper these shelf slope and deeper moorings might better be the purview of the national backbone than of the local agencies or academic institutions. To date, however, it is unclear how NDBC buoy positions have been arrived at. This, together with the need for NDBC buoys to begin paying additional attention to ocean variables as opposed to primarily atmosphere variables, suggests that there should be an overall buoy positioning design assessment. So while I am offering suggestions for a few new sites I would like to see a candid reassessment of the entire program such that the atmosphere and ocean communities may be better served by the national backbone.

Robert "Buzz" Martin, Texas General Land Office

Top four priorities for enhancing the national backbone:

  1. Addition of a sea-truth component (near surface current meters and ADCPs) to the Surface Current Mapping Initiative for the purposes of providing field validation and operational redundancy to the system. This should be required in every HF radar deployment area ... not just a few pilot or test bed locations. Existing in situ observing systems (RCOOS), where available, should be used or modified for this purpose to help reduce costs.
  2. Addition of ADCPs or other in situ current sensors to the NDBC buoys.
  3. Funding for a sustained, sensor calibration (datums, water levels, winds, currents, barometric pressure, etc.) effort between NDBC and other existing coastal ocean observing systems to facilitate the addition of non-NDBC observations (RCOOS, for example) to the NDBC data system. This will make it much easier to combine data from NDBC and non-NDBC systems and to QA/QC the data passing through NDBC.
  4. Funding of a high-capacity, coastal and offshore communication network that would serve both Federal and regional coastal ocean observing components to plug-in.

Katherine Andrews, Florida Department of Environmental Protection

  1. Nutrient monitoring in the coastal waters to detect non-point pollution impacts to the coastal waters. This is a critical need.
  2. We would like to see the data sonde technology used by the National Estuarine Research Reserves incorporated for broader use to obtain larger "coastal watershed" pictures of the state of the environment. (These sondes measure 7 basic parameters of water quality every half hour. They can be deployed for two-week periods and recovered or connected to modems and data retrieved via the web.)
  3. Light penetration measurements for use with sea grass maps in coastal waters.

Top Priorities for New or Enhanced
Regional Observing System Elements

Landry Bernard, National Data Buoy Center

These are suggested by Fiscal Year.

FY 2005:         GCOOS Regional Association governance and certification

FY 2006:         GCOOS Regional Association governance and certification

FY 2007 - 2011:         It is important for each year have funding in all of the areas of R&D, Pilot Projects, Pre-operations, and Operations. These are just some ideas to get this moving.

  • R&D
    • Gas hydrate research
    • Fiber optics (Industry), ADCP sensors, Loop Current, HF radar, remote sensing
  • Pilot Projects
    • ADCP sensors delivering data via fiber optic cable (industry) with data served in real-time via MODEM Kit to OPENDAP Server
  • Pre-Operation
    • New sensors on COMPS, TABS, LUMCON serving data in real-time via MODEM Kit to OPENDAP server.
    • Fiber optics (Industry), Iridium, UUVs, ROVs, HF radars
  • Operations
    • NDBC Real-Time OPENDAP Server transitions to operational status
    • Expand the networks of COMPS, LUMCON, TABS, TCOON, and other extant observing system elements
    • Transition other appropriate pre-operational activities to operational

Jan van Smirren and Dave Szabo, Fugro/GEOS

With respect to our top priorities for new or enhanced regional observing system elements we see hypoxia as one of the key issues to be addressed and believe that there would be much benefit in the installation of real time monitoring stations in the Gulf at strategic locations. Recently I was talking with the International Seakeepers Society and we thought that together, with a suitable academic partner (any ideas?) we could put together a proposal for installation of such systems on existing structures in the Gulf of Mexico, which we believe could be a very cost effective solution.

Robert Cohen, Weathernews Oceanroutes

Highest:

  1. Offshore meteorological stations, including wind speed, direction and visibility
  2. Coastal water level stations
  3. Offshore surface currents

Moderate:

  1. Current profiles

Gregg Jacobs, Naval Research Laboratory

  1. Satellite observations are an important part of the national backbone that can feed to all the regional alliances.
    • NRL could provide the real time satellite observations as part of the national backbone:
      • Jason-1 altimeter (SSH, SWH, wind speed)
      • GFO altimeter (SSH, SWH, wind speed)
      • Envisat (SSH, SWH, wind speed)
      • TOPEX interleaved (SSH, SWH, wind speed)
      • MCSST
      • MODAS Terra color
      • MODIS Aqua color
    • Rough cost estimates are $70K to integrate metadata into satellite observations and set up data archive. For out years, $70K to set up interactive data plotting and analysis capability.
  2. Cross-shelf break fluxes for the IOOS are the most difficult to directly observe. Covering the shelf break across the entire GCOOS area at sufficient spatial resolution would be prohibitive. One possible source is global or regional model systems, which can provide this component based on the deep ocean mesoscale observations from satellite and assimilation systems.
  3. Setting up the model analyses and distribution for nested coastal regions would be valuable for coastal model boundary conditions. Presently NRL could use boundary conditions from global NCOM or the higher resolution nested Intra Americas Seas NCOM. In the near future, the global HYCOM model would be providing the information.
    • A rough cost estimate to work with local modelers, determine the appropriate data sets, set up the analyses, and provide the data would require: $100K initially to work with regional modelers to set up the analysis of the global or regional nests, $80K in year two to set up the automated data processing, and $35K in out years to insure continued delivery.
  4. The primary fluxes in/out the shelf/coastal areas should be monitored using long-term instrumentation. The major inflow to the shelf that should be a top priority includes the drainage fluxes of mass, heat, buoyancy, sediments and chemicals from the major rivers and basins. Providing these fluxes will require the instrumentation of rivers and perhaps some larger drainage areas such as the Atchafalaya.
  5. The national CODAR backbone should provide sufficient surface current information (depending on range).
  6. Monitoring properties within and moving through critical areas should be covered next. The critical areas are zones of high impact high variability (hypoxia, red tide, shoreline erosion, ...)

There are two observation capabilities that should be provided through dedicated ship observations:

  1. Persistent surveying of slowly-varying processes (sediment chemical content, bathymetry, ...)
  2. Rapid high density observation capability in response to developing local events.

Note: Obviously there are not sufficient instruments to cover all space and time scales. A sparse network sufficient to provide indication that events are developing would give advanced notification to bring the high density sampling capability quickly to the area. The high resolution sampling capability would consist of the dedicated ship plus several UUV or gliders.

Gary Jeffress, Texas A&M University Corpus Christi

Priorities for enhancing TCOON element of regional observing system

The Texas Coastal Ocean Observation Network has as it's greatest need the strengthening of our platforms against hurricane and tropical storm damage. We lost three stations last year during Hurricane Claudette. The losses come at a time when observing and maintaining data is critical for storm surge modeling.

  1. The first upgrade needed is to strengthen the observing platforms. The 37 present stations would cost about $370,000 in materials and $150,000 in salaries for installation.
  2. Another upgrade we would like to see is the installation of a packet radio network along the coast for real-time data access. This would eliminate the three hour delay in data access caused by the data presently transmitted via GOES satellite. The packet radio network would cost about $1 million to install and upgrade.

Stephan Howden, Steven Lohrenz, Don Redalje, Don Roman, and Denis Wiesenburg; University of Southern Mississippi

Four major commercial concerns in the Gulf of Mexico are oil and gas, fisheries, shipping, and tourism. Additionally there are related environmental concerns such as subsidence in some regions, overexploitation of fisheries and degradation of critical habitat, the impact on marine mammals during the exploration and operations by industries that extract natural resources, industrial (at sea and along rivers) accidents and/or sabotage, and water quality changes. Moreover, there are processes that occur in the Gulf of Mexico that broad relevance to the world ocean and climate. Examples of this include the frequency and extent of harmful algal blooms and the role of large river inputs in carbon cycling. In order to be able to monitor long time scale variability there must be sustained in situ observations in the entire U.S. Gulf of Mexico continental margin. The top 5 priorities for new or enhanced regional observing elements to be supported by GCOOS are:

  1. Measurements (in situ and remote) of the regional temperature, salinity, and currents within the water column, as well as forcing fields, bathymetry, and meteorology. This is the background information that is needed as context to understand the development in all of the other information.
  2. A means to monitor water quality, including eutrophication, hypoxia, pollution, harmful algal blooms, turbidity, and other optical properties.
  3. Characterization of marine habitats (e.g., sea grass, coral reefs, estuaries, wetlands) and a means of measuring changes to them.
  4. Operational circulation models that use real-time forcing fields including river inflows and tides.
  5. Monitoring of marine animals through passive acoustic monitoring of marine mammals and fisheries trawl surveys.

Due to limited resources, the next task is to prioritize the infrastructure needed to properly address the above Gulf of Mexico issues. Here is a list of our top 5 priorities.

  1. High frequency radar along the entire coast, with a priority at river outflow plume regions. Perhaps placing some on oil platforms on the continental shelf.
  2. More instrumented moorings on the LA-MS-AL shelf where large freshwater input results in smaller horizontal and vertical scales of variability, buoyancy capping, high nutrient and sediment loads, and benthic hypoxic conditions. Moreover, frequent interactions with offshore mesoscale circulation features enhances the potential for cross-shelf exchange in this region.
  3. Ship and AUV surveys to extend the moored measurements and to do more complete sampling.
  4. Coordinate operational numerical modeling and data assimilative efforts between NAVO, NRL, USF, Texas A&M, and USM??.
  5. Funding efforts to expand the availability of a variety of shelf remote sensing products to the scientific and management communities. This includes satellite altimetry, optical remote sensing, and sea surface temperature. Presently, altimetry data is only usable with standard processing in the deep Gulf.

Robert Weisberg, University of South Florida

COMPS/SEACOOS elements/costs

The COMPS/SEACOOS in situ elements are positioned on the WFS based on several design rationale. The overarching goal is to specify material property distributions using a combination of observations and models. Recognizing that material properties vary due to deep-ocean inputs, land-derived inputs and surface forcing, resources are positioned accordingly. Thus, there is a need to monitor the shelf break at several locations since deep-ocean materials must first broach the shelf break before permeating the shelf. Similarly there is a need for monitoring the near shore where the salinity affects of the estuaries modify the flow fields. Between the near shore and the shelf break is the region of the inner shelf where interacting surface and bottom frictional (Ekman) boundary layers control the flow fields. COMPS/SEASCOOS in situ observations are meant to cover these three regimes. In addition, for models to adequately describe the flow fields they must have sufficiently accurate surface forcing fields (winds and surface heat flux). The same distribution of resources needed for the ocean variables also helps to better define these atmosphere variables (e.g., through OI blending with models and other data from satellite) as well as providing quantitative ground truth information for the modeled variables and data for use in model assimilation.

The COMPS SEACOOS in situ array elements either existing or in design are as follows, including rough cost estimates per element:

  1. Complete Ocean-Atmosphere interaction buoys (winds and heat flux, water column currents, and water column T/S).    $150K
  2. Reduced Ocean-Atmosphere interaction buoys (winds, water column currents, and water column T/S).     $125K
  3. Near shore stations (winds, waves, water column currents, and water column T/S).     $100K
  4. Coastal stations (winds, sea level)     $40K

We presently have 8 coastal stations, 6 either complete or reduced O-A stations, and funds for 1 near shore station. Maintaining these requires spares so we would be seeking 2 more near shore stations, plus spares for at least half of all stations. New capitalization costs over the next two years for in situ observing equipment is therefore about $900,000. Ship time, expendables, and calibrations will bring this figure up to $1.2M.

Together with the in situ array is an emergent HF-radar program. COMPS/SEACOOS for the WFS presently has either 3 long range CODAR systems either acquired or budgeted for. We would anticipate adding one new antenna site each year (Cedar Key, Dry Tortugas, Cape San Blas) at $150K per year and then filling in the regions offshore of the estuaries with shorter range, but higher resolution systems (to be determined).

Robert "Buzz" Martin, Texas General Land Office

Top five priorities for development of GCOOS ocean observing capabilities:

  1. Addition of three offshore TABS locations to create an inshore-offshore pair off of Corpus Christi, Matagorda Peninsula, and Sabine Pass (western Louisiana). The inshore component of these locations already exists. Also, addition of met packages to all TABS locations.
  2. Addition of in situ, near surface current measurements to the Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama coasts to link up with TABS and COMPS.
  3. Modeling Initiatives: A current forecast model validation and comparison effort for the Gulf of Mexico shelf and offshore. A data assimilation (in situ current measurements, SSH, other?) effort for surface and near surface current model forecasts.
  4. Addition of ADCPs to offshore oil platforms and linkage with existing observing systems in the Gulf of Mexico. This should have a lot of private sector participation at all levels (sensor installation, communications, system maintenance, data providers, value-adders, and end-users).
  5. Funding support to increase the frequency of maintenance visits to observing stations in the Gulf of Mexico. This will help bring the GCOOS components closer to achieving operational status.