Program
News
Ocean Technology and
Interdisciplinary Coordination
This is my first contribution to the Ocean Sciences newsletter as Program
Director for Ocean Technology and Interdisciplinary Coordination (OTIC).
It will be a big challenge to live up to the high standards and vision
established for the OTIC program by Larry Clark. As Larry summarized
in the previous newsletter, it is an exciting time for ocean science
and with this will come an enhanced need for innovative instrumentation
to advance research activities. In light of this, my plans are to continue
with the current priority of OTIC to support the development of new
tools to enhance ocean science research. In particular, I would greatly
encourage submission of proposals for innovative biological and chemical
sensors for the collection of long-term datasets.
Technology Development
Planning for the Ocean Observatories Initiative is continuing with
preparation for potential projects currently underway. Some of these
planning efforts were presented at the recent MTS meeting in Honolulu,
Hawaii. Among the issues raised during these presentations was the need
for continued development of low power sensors and systems as well as
improved data telemetry rates. An example of these planning efforts
is the Neptune feasibility plan, which is available on the Neptune website
(http://www.neptune.
washington.edu/).
In other observatory news, the Ocean.US webpage is now on-line (http://www.ocean.us.net).
Ocean.US was created by the National Oceanographic Partnership Program
(NOPP) in late 2000 to coordinate the integration of long-term observing
systems for research and operations.
Coastal Ocean Processes (CoOP) program
Currently, CoOP has two active initiatives: 1) the Great Lakes Episodic
Processes initiative, in which EEGLE and KITES are entering the final
year of project funding and are continuing the synthesis, modeling and
publication of their field results; and 2) the Wind-Driven Transport
Processes initiative, in which WEST and COAST will both be starting
their third year of funding and continuing the collection and analysis
of field data. Web links for more information on these programs can
be found on the CoOP website (http://www.skio.peachnet.edu/coop/).
An Announcement of Opportunity (AO) for proposals related to buoyancy-driven
transport processes will soon be released. This AO developed from an
open community workshop that defined the research needed to better understand
processes controlling buoyancy-driven systems influenced by freshwater
flows. The workshop results and Science Plan were published as “
Coastal Ocean Processes: Transport and Transformation Processes over
Continental Shelves with Substantial Freshwater Inflows” (CoOP
Report No. 7). The Executive Summary and Science Plan resulting from
this workshop are available on the CoOP website. This AO is driven by
the importance of buoyancy-driven transport in controlling the cross-shelf
transfer, transformation, and fate of biological, geological and chemical
materials on continental margins. Appropriate study locations should
have buoyancy-influenced flow as a major component of coastal transport.
Flow-induced dissolved and particulate constituent loads should be large
enough to allow detection and quantification. Furthermore, buoyant input
should be sufficiently large so as to influence the structure and/or
productivity of biological communities that are affected by freshwater
inflow.
In other news, CoOP will host an evening meeting at the AGU/ASLO Ocean
Sciences meeting in Honolulu (February 2002). This meeting will serve
to address community questions about the Announcement of Opportunity
and facilitate the development of collaborations for interdisciplinary
proposals.
Alexandra Isern (aisern@nsf.gov)
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