Registration

VENUE INFO

Agenda

Speakers

Home

Abstract

CARRIE BOW CAY AUTOMATED MET-OCEAN MONITORING: A DECADE OF SUCCESS SUPPORTING SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH ON THE MESOAMERICAN BARRIER REEF

Thomas B. Opishinski
Interactive Oceanographics
Bio

In 1997 an environmental monitoring system was established at the Carrie Bow Cay (CBC) Marine Research laboratory in Belize to address the fundamental need for meteorological and oceanographic measurements. Many factors including operational environment, remote location, data accessibility, power restrictions, autonomous operation, and available communications for data transfer influenced the design criteria. In many ways the design criteria established for the system by CCRE in 1996 were both pioneering and vital to the long term success of the system. It was one of the earliest monitoring systems to process and transfer real-time data from a remote geographic location to a web site for public access. To our knowledge it is still the only automated system continuously monitoring both oceanographic and meteorological conditions on the outer Mesoamerican Barrier Reef. The system continues to provide a baseline set of data used to examine long term trends, short term and seasonal cycles, and episodic events. This data has proven invaluable to management efforts for regional organizations and research studies for both Smithsonian scientists and an increasing number of organizations worldwide. To meet expanding needs of the users, continuous efforts are taken to improve and add functionality to the environmental monitoring system and supporting web site. This paper provides a general overview of the system, samples of new data offerings (e.g. statistical weather summaries, tidal forecasts and shoreline surveys), samples of data (illustrating trends, extreme weather events and seasonal dependencies), and examples of several projects that have utilized the data from Carrie Bow Cay. Also included is an introduction to some of the features of the newly designed web site (projected late 2007) that will provide interactive data analysis for the user, forecasting and real-time quality control of data.