New Ocean Observation System
SHEILA SEMANS

The 150-year record of tidal observations at the Golden Gate is a fundamental building block for the far-reaching California Coastal Ocean Observing System (CalCOOS), now being developed by a multi-partner group coordinated by the Coastal Conservancy. Instruments on shore, in the ocean, and on satellites will monitor surface and subsurface currents, sea surface temperature, salinity, chlorophyll, and other phenomena critical to marine life. CalCOOS will coordinate, enhance and supplement real-time observations of the coast and will enable California to participate in a global effort to improve scientists’ ability to detect changes in marine ecosystems rapidly, and to predict changes and determine their consequences.

As part of CalCOOS, the Coastal Conservancy is currently implementing the Coastal Ocean Currents Monitoring Program (COCMP) in partnership with marine labs, management agencies, the environmental community, and industry, with $21 million dollars in funding from the last two voter-approved bond initiatives. COCMP will focus primarily on installing instrumentation to measure and map surface currents (the uppermost meter of the water column) along the state’s entire coast. Shore-based high frequency radar will provide, in close to real time, maps of the constantly changing sea surface. These maps will help track oil spills and the transport of other pollutants and, when combined with other data, will provide the basis for better decisions related to beach closures, fisheries management, harmful algal blooms, sediment transport and coastal erosion, and marine safety. Two regional systems have been designed, one in the Southern California Bight with Scripps Institution of Oceanography taking the lead, and one in central and northern California, led by San Francisco State University. These systems have been designed to address local needs, but data collected will also be integrated statewide and served over the web in real time. Inadequate information about water movement is the single most important obstacle to efforts to understand the coastal ocean. As stated in Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s recently released Ocean Action Plan, developing an observing program for the ocean similar to what exists for weather is now a high priority for California.

—Sheila Semans

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