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

Once installed, the CODAR HF radar network will monitor surface currents in coastal areas of the Strait of Georgia. “Researchers will use the surface maps of currents to monitor both tides and the fate of the Fraser River plume”, says Dr. Richard Dewey, the VENUS associate director, research. “The area is also heavily used for commercial shipping and regular operational products will be generated for the Vancouver Port Authority, Canadian Coast Guard, and BC Ferries”.

The VENUS CODAR network will be state-of-the-art. It includes, for example, CODAR multistatic software. With this configuration, a receiver simultaneously receives and processes signals from more than one transmitter, thereby substantially increasing surface current data density and potentially the system’s range. In this configuration, each unit produces both surface current radials, using its own co-located transmitter, and ellipticals.

The VENUS units also employ the new CODAR SeaSonde receive antenna–the first in Canada to do so. “The new dome-shaped antenna design features a smooth upper profile absent of any screws, reducing likelihood of any water intrusion” said Laura Pederson, CODAR’s director of marketing. “Another advancement is the absence of external horizontal whip ground plane elements, with ground plane set inside the mast for protection.”

VENUS Ocean Observatory CODAR SeaSondes | OEA Technologies

PSI also manufactures a total dissolved gas sensor, which when used in conjunction with independent measurements of dissolved oxygen provides insight into biological productivity in reef and other coastal environments.

With this partnership, OEA Technologies becomes Pro-Oceanus’ exclusive representative throughout the Caribbean. “We at Pro-Oceanus Systems Inc. are very pleased with our new partnership in the Caribbean with OEA Technologies Inc.  This is exciting for us because OEA has a strong presence in the Caribbean, and this region has great potential for our environmental and industrial lines of sensors”, said Dr. Bruce Johnson, president of Pro-Oceanus.

Pro-Oceanus Systems Inc. of Bridgewater, Nova Scotia, is an international leader in aquatic dissolved gas sensors. In addition to its line of pCO2 and total gas sensors, the company manufactures in situ methane and hydrogen sulfide sensors, which facilitate offshore oil and gas exploration and production operations.

Caribbean Climate Change and Coral Bleaching | OEA Technologies

In 2010, OEA initiated its Caribbean activities with CODAR SeaSonde representation in the neighbouring island of Barbados. “From an environmental monitoring perspective”, says Dr. Brian Whitehouse, OEA’s president, “neighbouring Caribbean states face common problems and therefore have several common objectives. In addition to country-wide environmental monitoring networks, there are cost-benefits to establishing regional networks.”

The volcanic island of St. Lucia, named after Saint Lucy of Syracuse, is among the most mountainous of Caribbean islands and was one of the hardest hit by last year’s Hurricane Tomas. The neighbouring islands of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines were also impacted by Tomas, but not to as great an extent. Like other countries in the Windwards chain of Caribbean states, both countries have strong interests in marine meteorology and the dynamics of nearshore environments.

St. Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines | OEA Technologies

Once installed, the CODAR HF radar system will monitor surface currents in coastal areas of the Strait of Georgia. “Researchers will use the surface maps of currents to monitor both tides and the fate of the Fraser River plume”, says Dr. Richard Dewey, the VENUS associate director, research. “The area is also heavily used for commercial shipping and regular operational products will be generated for the Vancouver Port Authority, Canadian Coast Guard, and BC Ferries”.

The VENUS system marks a milestone in Canadian efforts to monitor coastal environments, from coast to coast to coast. “Including the VENUS system, there are CODARs in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec and British Columbia”, says Dr. Brian Whitehouse, OEA’s president. “Our next Canadian frontier is the Arctic, where we will interact with CODARs already deployed in parts of Alaska.” The U.S. has approximately 150 CODARs monitoring sovereign Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic waters.

“Within the last decade, CODARs have become the technology of choice for monitoring coastal surface currents over wide-areas”, says Whitehouse. The U.S. Coast Guard uses them in support of maritime search and rescue operations, and they were employed in the Gulf of Mexico to help mitigate effects of last year’s massive oil spill. HF radar technology has also been used to detect ships in sovereign waters, on an R&D basis, but it really took-off in the mid-1990s, when the marine research community incorporated HF radar systems into their emerging coastal ocean observatories. CODAR HF radars have since become an integral component of university efforts designed to understand and forecast coastal marine environments.

OEA Expands VENUS Ocean Observatory | OEA Technologies