Three SeaSonde networks are providing current information to Thailand’s disaster management authorities. The networks are operated by MetLink Info Co., on behalf of the Thai Meteorological Department. Additional details and coastal Thailand SeaSonde-derived current and wave data can be viewed online via the Thai Marine Meteorological Disaster Warning System Website.

This article is reproduced with permission from the CODAR Ocean Sensor Website.

CODAR SeaSondes For Disaster Mitigation | OEA Technologies

Designed by researchers at SF State, the app relies on data supplied by the Coastal Ocean Currents Monitoring Program in Northern California (COCMP-NC), which monitors offshore currents and reports that information to the public. SF State is responsible for monitoring currents in the San Francisco Bay and along the coast from south of Point Reyes to Pillar Point near Half Moon Bay.

The app uses Google Maps and GPS to give sailors a real-time look at currents in the Bay, the previous 24 hours of currents and a projection for the next two hours. “A sailor wants to know what is going on around him. And San Francisco Bay is interesting because the currents are so strong, probably the strongest currents on the California Coast,” said Professor of Geosciences Newell ‘Toby’ Garfield, who developed the app along with the Project’s Operations Manager Jim Pettigrew. “So if you’re out as a sailor, both from a safety point of view, as well as being able to plot a route to your destination, it’s good to know what the currents are.”

The app, which was funded by the California Coastal Conservancy and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Integrated Ocean Observing Systems Office, is available for free through the Apple App Store.

This news release issued by San Francisco State University Communications Office was originally published at http://www.sfsu.edu/~news/2012/spring/10.html

iPhone / iPad Apps for CODAR Current Data | OEA Technologies

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is responsible for worldwide management of the radio-frequency spectrum and “development of technical standards that ensure networks and technologies seamlessly interconnect”. The ITU convenes every four to five years in a World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC) to make decisions resulting in treaties regulating global standards.

Of importance to the HF radar oceanographic community is ITU/WRC Resolution 612: Use of the radiolocation service between 3 and 50 MHz to support (high-frequency) oceanographic radar operations. Once in effect, this resolution will benefit the oceanographic HF radar community, as it is expected that the licensing process (approvals for radio transmission) by government agencies will proceed smoother and will be concluded faster; and users will be able to plan with certainty at which frequency their network can operate.

No immediate action is necessary by any HF radar operator until the service rules and licensing regulations are developed and promulgated. While the ITU sets global standards, each Region and country within will set specific service rules and licensing regulations, so there will be some variations among countries. We expect this to be a lengthy process.

Already approved “experimental” licenses in other bands (i.e. outside of the new WRC-allocated bands) will not automatically go away.  Individual country authorities will need to determine how and when this might happen, if it happens at all. Presumably, once the implementation of the WRC decision is complete, at least some oceanographic radars will need to begin transitioning to the new allocated bands, operating under the new service rules, when their experimental licenses reach expiry date and require new or renewal licensing.  Use of the new bands should not begin until the service rules are in place and a new license has been issued to an oceanographic radar operator.

In most cases, transitioning CODAR SeaSondes to the nearest allocated band should not require major hardware modification. Each radar will have to transmit a call sign, in Morse code, at least once every 20 minutes. The exact method for doing this will be decided at WRC Working Party meetings over the course of the next year or two. Once specific requirements are set, then CODAR will begin developing a technique that can be implemented locally on each SeaSonde.

This article is reproduced from and with the permission of CODAR Oceans Sensors. See the CODAR Website for additional details and a listing of ITU HF radar frequencies and bandwidths.

ITU Recognizes HF Radar for Oceanography | OEA Technologies

An engineering team from the University of Victoria installed the HF radar in November 2011 at the Westshore Terminal in Tsawwassen, BC, and calibrated its antenna the following month. The CODAR monitors radial surface currents in the Strait of Georgia within a 20 km range of its shore-based antenna. VENUS will install a second CODAR HF radar in the area this spring, thereby allowing the observatory to obtain total surface currents.

The Winter 2011/2012 edition of the VENUS newsletter is available here as a PDF file. The animated sequence of surface current radials are displayed here, whereas the latest CODAR data plot can be found at this location.

VENUS CODAR HF Radar Monitors BC Waters | OEA Technologies

Dr. Whitehouse, who is the president of OEA Technologies Inc, just released a new book on the subject, entitled A Sense of the Sea: Our View of the Sea and How We Got It. Whitehouse says he admires the way Rachel Carson hooked the public on oceanography with her 1951 book The Sea Around Us, and that he wrote A Sense of the Sea to inspire people to reconnect with the sea. Within the book’s 228 pages, Whitehouse synthesizes key aspects of our present understanding of the sea, and differentiates this view from twentieth-century perceptions still held by most adults.

In the book’s forward, renowned oceanographer Walter Munk state’s “This volume offers Brian Whitehouse’s very personal relation to the oceans. Under the influence of his Navy father and a Dalhousie University PhD in Oceanography, Whitehouse developed a keen interest in what was learned about the oceans during and following WWII, and the people who did the work. This was the era when remote sensing from satellites revolutionized the way we monitored the global oceans.”

Additional details on the author are available here, and excerpts of the book can be accessed online.

A Sense of the Sea | OEA Technologies

CERMES is located on the Cave Hill campus of the University of West Indies. Its mission is to make a significant contribution to sustainable development in the Caribbean by: (i) providing graduate students with advanced training; (ii) conducting research in the natural resource and environmental management sectors; (iii) providing guidance and professional services to regional governments, NGOs and the private sector; and (iv) hosting environmental initiatives, heightening public awareness and offering short courses and workshops.

“When it comes to designing marine monitoring systems, using sensors and models, monitoring surface currents and waves, or measuring dissolved gases such as pCO2, OEA has the technology and consulting expertise,” says Dr. Brian Whitehouse, president of OEA Technologies Incorporated.  “CERMES’ extensive Caribbean experience and regional insight provide the means to cooperatively apply this capability to coastal waters of Barbados and other regions of the Eastern Caribbean.” Specific potential issues identified by OEA include coral bleaching, monitoring sea surface temperature and pCO2, reef health monitoring, storm surge, tsunamis monitoring, maritime search and rescue, vessel traffic services and oil spill mitigation.

CERMES & OEA Cooperate in Eastern Caribbean | OEA Technologies

“The coastal ocean observing community spent the last decade or so focusing on getting HF radar networks up and running.” said Dr. Brian Whitehouse, president of OEA Technologies, as he announced the cooperative initiative. “OEA sees this focus shifting to integration with maritime operations. Historically, the security sector has been on the vanguard of such operations and we see this continuing. As a result, we are particularly pleased to work with Akoostix and the world-class software design and data fusion capabilities that its staff bring to the ocean observing sector.”

“With the baseline sensing capability in place to provide data, Akoostix can leverage the SeaSonde’s data products to provide a world class solution. We have long understood that the concepts and much of the software that we’ve developed for underwater surveillance can be reused in complementary domains and we look forward to proving that this is the case for CODAR HF radar,” said Joe Hood, president of Akoostix, as he weighed in on the benefits of the alliance. “CODAR HF radar is a highly capable and cost-effective sensor that provides an ideal platform for a wide variety of marine surveillance and ocean observation solutions.”

Globally, approximately 85% of all coastal oceanographic HF radars are CODAR SeaSondes. The foremost maritime security applications pertain to search and rescue, oil spill mitigation, ship detection and marine modelling. “The ship detection application needs to grow before it is ready for prime time,” says Whitehouse, “and we see the definition of maritime security evolving. In the Caribbean, for example, security is all about the first few hundred meters and the effects of such processes as climate change, coral bleaching, beach erosion and coastal flooding. It is all a matter of perspective.”

Akoostix & OEA Technologies Team on HF Radar | OEA Technologies

Nine hours later and over 8,000 km away, standard (13 MHz) and long-range (5 MHz) SeaSondes on the West Coast of the United States were also observing the tsunami signature. More complexity was observed in the measured periods (25 – 40 min) in the United States due to multiple paths and directions of arrival – as illustrated by the NOAA tsunami wave energy map. In all cases, the tsunami was observed at three different stages of current velocity processing and by sensors independent from the SeaSondes.

CODAR SeaSondes and tide gauges located along the coast of the United States show a slowly varying tidal background until the tsunami arrived, when both observed the more rapid 25-40 minute period response. Signals at the coast on the tide gages were delayed from those recorded by the radar offshore, from 10 to 30 minutes, because the offshore radars were further “upstream” toward the tsunami source. As it traveled across the ever-shallower water to get to the coast, the tsunami slowed down, as predicted by wave theory, over the path distances from 25 – 40 km.

The delay seen by the West Coast radars and tide gages is about nine and a half hours from the time of the tsunami, which is predicted for travel time across the Pacific based on both models and observations.

For additional details read the full story by CODAR’s Don Barrack and Belinda Lipa.

CODAR SeaSondes Detect Japan Tsunami | OEA Technologies

Key Findings include:

- A global network of chemical and biological observations is needed to monitor changes in ocean conditions attributable to acidification.
- Changes in seawater chemistry are expected to affect marine organisms that use carbonate to build shells or skeletons.
- Ocean chemistry is changing at an unprecedented rate and magnitude due to human-made carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere.

Ocean Acidification & Climate Change Strategy | OEA Technologies

The accompanying map shows sample radial surface current measurements obtained from the Westshore Terminal test site. Total surface current measurements are obtained by combining these radial surface currents with those obtained from the other test site, located near the Iona breakwater.

“We are very pleased with the results in this highly urban environment” said Dr. Brian Whitehouse, president of OEA Technologies–Canada’s exclusive CODAR service provider. The folks at VENUS did a superb job of running the antenna pattern measurements and are on track for completing the installation as planned.

Further details are provided in the Spring 2011 edition of the VENUS newsletter.

Vancouver CODAR Seasonde Test Successful | OEA Technologies