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What is a Coastal Ocean Observatory? New technologies facilitate novel experiments and capture new data from the ocean. Instrumentation is placed on the ocean floor, autonomously “flown” through the ocean, or suspended on buoys to capture data from the ocean. The information is collected, sent via telemetry to a data manager that relays it out over the Internet where scientists, resource managers, educators, students and the recreating public can view and use it.(Teachers: Click here for resources you can use to integrate real time data sources into the K-12 classroom)
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2007 Mid-Atlantic Center for Ocean Sciences Education Excellence Questions? Comments? Email Webmaster |
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Autonomous
Underwater Vehicles or Gliders – autonomous
underwater robot like instrument that converts changes in
vehicle buoyancy to vertical motion. A pair of fixed wings
provides forward momentum to move horizontally through the
ocean. A suite of miniaturized physical and bio-optical instruments,
remotely measure water properties including temperature, salinity,
and the absorption and scattering of light in the water column.
Buoys
– a moored floating marker that is outfitted with instruments
that collect oceanographic and/or meteorological data that is
relayed back in real time or near real time to a central data
management office. Example: Chesapeake Bay Observing System
(
Remote
Sensing Satellites – These satellites orbit the
earth at an altitude of 500 miles and are designed to "see"
the earth's surface temperature, taking pictures of the earth
that represent temperatures as colors. The images taken of the
ocean are sent back down to earth as Sea Surface Temperature
maps, or SST maps for short.
CODAR
– oceanographers determine surface currents and wave heights
and frequency using information gathered by a radar system called
Coastal Ocean Dynamics Application Radar, sometimes called Coastal
RADAR, or CODAR for short. Computers interpret the data and
then re-present them as real-time maps of the ocean using arrows
to indicate currents.
Meteorological
Instruments/Station – because the atmosphere
and ocean are intimately linked, it is important to collect
basic weather data as part of the observatory array.
