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Enlarge ImageMap of proposed assets for the "Pioneer Array," shown within the context of the Northeastern Regional Coastal Observing System. (Illustration by Jack Cook, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)
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Enlarge ImageMap showing location of the planned "Endurance Array Lines" off the coast of Oregon and Washington. (Oregon State University)
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Enlarge ImageProposed configuration of the "Pioneer Array" observing system. (Illustration by Jack Cook, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)
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Enlarge ImageSchematic of surface/subsurface mooring pair to be deployed at global and coastal sites of the Ocean Observatories Initiative. (Illustration by Jack Cook, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)
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| 23 August 2007
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Joint Oceanographic
Institutions (JOI) has awarded a $97.7 million contract to an academic
partnership led by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), to support
the development, installation, and initial operation of the coastal and global
components of the National Science Foundation’s Ocean Observatories Initiative
(OOI). The WHOI partnership includes
Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University
of California, San
Diego, and Oregon State University’s
College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences. This award completes the
management team to construct and implement the $331.5 million OOI Network.
“This initiative is a major investment that will transform our understanding of
the ocean,” said JOI President Steven
Bohlen. “It will contribute to tremendous advances in our understanding of how
Earth works.”
The OOI Network spans global, regional, and coastal
scales, linked by a system-wide cyberinfrastructure. The award establishes WHOI and
its partners from Scripps and OSU as the implementing organization for the
coastal and global components of the OOI Network. Each partner will contribute
scientific and engineering expertise to the development of a range of
innovative moored buoys, cabled nodes, and autonomous vehicles that will provide users with
data in real-time or near-real-time and allow users to remotely control their
instruments and construct virtual observatories specifically tailored to their
scientific needs.
The initial 67-month contract is valued at $97.7
million and contains options for five years of operation and maintenance, which
would bring total funding for WHOI and its partners to more than $200 million. Raytheon will provide
project management and systems engineering support to WHOI, and industry
partners Technip and Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) will
be assisting in the design of a high-performance moored platform for the OOI
Network.
“By
exploiting technological advances in the fields of in situ sensors, autonomous vehicles, and cyberinfrastructure—including telecommunications and networking—the OOI will revolutionize the way
we conduct oceanography,” said Jim Luyten, Acting President and Director of
WHOI. “These systems will provide us the ability to continuously monitor the
ocean over time and space.” The
WHOI-led team will design and deploy global buoys to address planetary-scale
problems in critical high latitude locations in the Northern and Southern
hemispheres. A major goal of the global observatory is to better understand and
predict the impact of climate change on the interlinked ocean-atmosphere
system and on marine ecosystems, biodiversity, and community structure,
especially in remote, poorly sampled parts of the world’s ocean.
“The
ability to make long-term measurements in the coastal and global ocean provides
an opportunity to truly understand ocean variability, hazards, and climate
change in response to natural events and human
activity,” said
Scripps Institution of Oceanography Director Tony Haymet.
Permanent
and transportable arrays
of buoys and autonomous vehicles will be deployed off the Pacific
Northwest and Mid-Atlantic Bight (initially) to study coastal processes and to monitor changes in coastal systems. The
aim of the coastal arrays is to understand complex coastal ecosystems and their
critical role in the ecology and biogeochemistry of the world’s oceans, coastal
hazards such as storms and harmful algal blooms, and the impact of climate
change on the coastal ocean.
“By
providing real-time, continuous access to the sea through the Internet, the OOI
will transform ocean research and education,” said Mark Abbott, Dean of
OSU/COAS. “No longer will ocean exploration and research be limited to
scientists; everyone with a connection to the web—including students,
teachers, decision makers and the general public—will be able to have access
to these undersea networks.”
JOI
published the OOI’s Conceptual Network Design, developed with input from the research
community, in August 2006. A modified version of this plan was distributed in
March 2007. In May 2007, JOI announced awards to the University
of Washington and the University of California,
San Diego, to
lead OOI’s regional and cyberinfrastructure components, respectively. Each partner will contribute to JOI’s
ongoing development of the preliminary design in preparation for a review
scheduled for late 2007. OOI is the U.S. science community’s
contribution to a
broader national and international effort to establish a Global Ocean Observing
System (GOOS).
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JOI is a
consortium of premier oceanographic research institutions that serves the U.S. scientific
community through management of large-scale, global research programs in the
fields of marine geology and geophysics and oceanography. Known for leadership
of U.S.
scientific ocean drilling and ocean observing initiatives, JOI has helped
facilitate discovery and advance global understanding of the Earth and its
oceans through effective systems engineering and program management.
CONTACT: Jon Corsiglia, JOI, 202-232-3900 or jcorsiglia@joiscience.org
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