For the month of February, PacIOOS has many exciting updates to share -- scroll down to check out the monthly newsletter or visit our website or Voyager
. What a busy month!
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PacIOOS Instruments and Tools
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The wave run-up tool for the North Shore of O'ahu
indicates two flooding events for the week of February 21. |
PacIOOS Ocean Observing and Forecasting Tools in Action
Two very large north swells generated exceptionally high waves across the Hawaiian Islands. The wave buoy off Waimea Bay measured 27.8 ft significant wave height on Monday, February 21st -- a new record breaking height since the initial deployment of the buoy in 2001. The PacIOOS wave run-up forecast for O'ahu's North Shore suggested two potential flooding events due to the extremely large swells. Residents, businesses, and local officials prepared properties and infrastructure along the north facing shores, which indeed experienced inundation of houses and overtopping of streets. For users of Hale'iwa Harbor, PacIOOS also provides the Harbor Surge Forecast to provide advance notice of the potential for strong currents within the harbor that may cause damage to boats and infrastructure.
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| Eight wave buoys are located within the main Hawaiian Islands. |
All Hawai'i Wave Buoys Back in the Water
PacIOOS redeployed its wave buoys off Kaumalapau, Lana'i, and Hilo, Hawai'i, this past month, completing the set of eight wave buoys across the main Hawaiian Islands. All buoys measure wave height, direction, period, and sea surface temperature in 30 minute intervals. Data are available to view on the PacIOOS website in different formats, including a graph, table, spectra, and in a combined forecast (WaveWatch III). Users can also access current and historic wave buoy data through PacIOOS Voyager.
Wave buoys are a key ocean observing asset to monitor wave conditions. Ocean users, federal, state and county officials can make well-informed and safe decisions due to the availability of wave data. Data are managed by the Coastal Data Information Program (CDIP) at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Long-term partnerships with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and CDIP enable data streaming.
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PacIOOS Announces New Director
Congratulations to Melissa Iwamoto on her promotion to Director of PacIOOS.
Melissa has been an integral part of the PacIOOS program over the past four years and served as the Deputy Director since August 2014.
Melissa has been working in the Pacific Islands region for the past 16 years, with more than a decade of that time spent coordinating and managing community engagement, resource conservation and planning, and ocean observing efforts. Her tenure in the Pacific Islands began as a coastal management officer with Peace Corps in Yap State of the Federated States of Micronesia, where she worked for 3 years. Prior to her time with PacIOOS, Melissa was a Planner for the State of Hawai'i Coastal Zone Management Program, focusing on community-based marine resource management and adaptation to climate change.
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| Regular maintenance of the nearshore sensors is necessary to ensure continuous operations. |
Water Quality Monitoring Efforts on Maui
PacIOOS staff presented at the Wailuku Community Managed Makai Area (CMMA) monthly meeting and visited with various partners on Maui to learn about ongoing water quality monitoring efforts and other local initiatives. PacIOOS maintains two nearshore sensors on Maui, and a wave buoy off Maui's north shore. Data from citizen science water quality monitoring is also available on Voyager. Special thanks to Cliff and Joan West and Teri White for servicing the PacIOOS nearhsore sensor at Kalama Beach Park with the generous support of Maui Dreams Dive Company. A big Mahalo also to Jay Carpio and Wade Bortz from the Wailuku CMMA team for servicing the nearshore sensor in Kahului Harbor.
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| Surface currents observations from O'ahu cover part of Penguin Bank, extending west from Moloka'i. |
Paper Published on Surface Current Observations after Tsunami
Lead author Lindsey Benjamin, along with other PacIOOS-affiliated researchers from the University of Hawai'i, recently published in the Journal of Geophysical Research "The 2011 Tohoku tsunami south of Oahu: High-frequency Doppler radio observations and model simulations of currents." The
sea surface current observations on the south shore of O'ahu detected oscillatory radial currents following the arrival of the 2011 tsunami, generated by an 9.0 magnitude earthquake off Japan's coast. Scientists compared the observations on Penguin Bank with the modeled currents.
View the abstract.
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| The Ala Wai Water Quality Buoy measures surface ocean and atmospheric CO2, amongst other parameters. |
PacIOOS Presentations to Inform Partners
PacIOOS presented at the Carbon Networks Workshop, a collaboration between the
Waikīkī Aquarium
, the
Ocean Exploratorium
in San Francisco, and the
Pacific Science Center
in Seattle, to explore local and regional datasets, visualizations and narratives to build educator capacity. PacIOOS provided an overview of available data within the Pacific Islands region, with a particular focus on ocean acidification and climate change. In collaboration with the Pacific Marine Environment Laboratory (PMEL), PacIOOS serves data from thirteen buoys across the Pacific, measuring atmospheric and oceanic carbon dioxide as an indicator for ocean acidification.
A
s part of NOAA's Science Seminar Series at the Inouye Regional Center, O'ahu, PacIOOS Data Management Lead and Associate Professor Jim Potemra provided insights
about the wide range of data services that are available to users through PacIOOS's standard services. Marine debris particle tracking was one of the research topics of discussion to illustrate the application of ocean circulation models.
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The "Ocean Enterprise" supports ocean measurements,
observations and forecasting. |
IOOS Releases Ocean Enterprise Study
The "Ocean Enterprise: A Study of US Business Activity in Ocean Measurement, Observation & Forecasting" was recently released by the Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) to better understand the scope and scale of such. More than 400 for profit companies and non-profit organizations in 36 states were identified across the U.S. that contribute to the ocean enterprise. A total of $7 billion (USD) is generated in annual revenue and more than half of the businesses are expecting growth in their activities in the next year. The study was conducted in cooperation with the Maritime Alliance and ERISS Corporation.
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Welcome to the Team, Elysse!
Elysse Forester recently joined PacIOOS as the Marine Data Student Assistant to support the data management team in various ways. Elysee will monitor availability and validate accuracy of various data sets, such as the
tiger shark tracking pages and the
wave buoys. Elysse is a Marine Biology Senior at the University of Hawai'i (UH) at Mānoa and is expected to graduate this Fall.
As a volunteer at the Waikīkī Aquarium, she has
been able to teach the public about marine ecosystems and likes to encourage critical thinking on how we are impacting the ocean. The most important aspect for her is to share research findings and other valuable information with non-scientists who otherwise would not have access to it.
Elysse also serves as the UH President of the American Cetacean Society, a student organization that focuses on education about and conservation of cetaceans and other marine animals. In her spare time, she likes to be outside, either hiking, snorkeling or SCUBA diving. With a strong interest in biology, chemistry, and the ocean environment,
Elysse plans to pursue a graduate degree in Chemical Oceanography at the University of Washington next year.
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Based within the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, PacIOOS is the Pacific Islands regional component of the U.S. Integrated Ocean Observing System (
IOOS®
). PacIOOS is a partnership of data providers and users working together to enhance ocean observations and develop, disseminate, evaluate, and apply ocean data and information products designed to address the environmental, economic, and public safety needs of stakeholders who call the Pacific Islands home. For more information on PacIOOS, please visit
www.pacioos.org
.
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Copyright © 2013. All Rights Reserved.
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