OOI Science Plan: Exciting Opportunities using OOI Data
The NSF has designated an Ocean Observatories Initiative Facility Board (OOIFB) to provide independent input and guidance regarding the management and operation of the OOI. The OOIFB provides pathways to expand scientific and public awareness of the OOI, and ensure that the oceanographic community is kept informed of OOI developments.
Version 1.1
The Global moorings and gliders can be reprogrammed from shore to gather measurements of an unexpected event or change in conditions. Two types of gliders are utilized. Open Ocean Gliders sample within and around the triangular array, and are equipped with acoustic modems. When these gliders get close to a subsurface Flanking Moorings, which don’t have a surface expression, they download data from the mooring through the water via an acoustic modem. They then surface and transmit the data to a satellite for transmission to OOI’s servers. Profiling Gliders sample the upper water column near the Apex Profiling Mooring. Any data that are not downloaded during the deployment are available after recovery.
Data by the Numbers
Seven years of data (and growing) 73 billion rows of data stored 36 terabytes of data provided 189 million download requests
B.1.1 Global Station Papa 50oN, 145oW 4200 meters
B. The Arrays
The Global Station Papa Array (Fig. 3.2) is located in the Gulf of Alaska near the NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL) Surface Buoy. The region is a high nutrient low chlorophyll (HNLC) area, where iron fertilization experiments have been conducted. It is vulnerable to ocean acidification, deoxygenation, marine heat waves, and has a productive fishery and low eddy variability. It is impacted by the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and adds to the broader suite of OOI and other observatory sites in the Northeast Pacific.
The OOI currently consists of five arrays continuously collecting ocean data (Fig. 3.1). Two coastal arrays expand and greatly enhance existing observations off both U.S. coasts. A submarine cabled array ‘wires’ a region in the northeast Pacific Ocean, with a high-speed optical and high-power grid that powers data gathering and observation. Global components address high-latitude changes in ocean processes using moored openocean infrastructure linked to shore via satellite. Complete information on the arrays, sensors, and instrumentation is provided on the OOI website at https://oceanobservatories.org/observatories/. Further descriptions of the novel OOI platforms and technologies are provided in Section 4.
The Global Station Papa Array is a combination of fixed platforms (moorings) and mobile platforms (ocean gliders) (Fig 3.3). The gliders provide simultaneous spatial and temporal sampling within the upper 1000 m. The two Flanking Moorings and the Apex Profiling Mooring form a triangular array ~40 km on a side. The Apex Profiling Mooring includes two wire-following profilers, one operating from ~300 m to 2200 m and the second from ~2200 m to 4000 m. Flanking Moorings have their uppermost flotation at ~30 m depth and instruments at discrete depths along the mooring riser to a depth of 1500 m. Surface meteorological and upper water column measurements are available from the nearby NOAA PMEL surface mooring.
B.1 Global Ocean Arrays The Global Irminger Sea and Station Papa Arrays consist of moorings and autonomous vehicles that provide time-series observations and mesoscale spatial sampling at high-latitude regions critical to our understanding of climate, the carbon cycle, and ocean circulation. Although the Argentine Basin and Southern Ocean global arrays are decommissioned, the data collected during the three to five years they were in operation are available through the OOI Data Portal.
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