Mariners like commercial fishermen and recreational boaters need to sift through a great deal of data from many different sites to track the weather environment, visual conditions, and wave states for their areas of operation. Weather stations, webcams, wave buoys, high frequency radar sites, tide gauges, and other scientific instruments are located throughout the marine environment in which we navigate our boats. Scientists also struggle to gather this available information that developed and promulgated by a myriad of State and Federal agencies of use in their research projects.
A new program has come online in Alaska that can serve as an example of how to centralize ocean data and make it more accessible. Established by a Who's Who list of resource and research agencies, the Alaska Ocean Observing System (AOOS) has a stated goal to "…improve our ability to rapidly detect changes in marine ecosystems and living resources, and predict future changes and their consequences for the public good."
AOOS is not fully implemented, but its goals of improving marine safety, mitigation of natural hazards, and improved climate forecasts are real underway. Improved current predications, weather forecasts, and reports of ocean states will benefit many potential users like shippers, researchers, and mariners. Eventually the Alaskan effort will plug into a national plan to integrate ocean observations and data at a single point that is available for all interested users.
So what will this look like?
One example is a unified page that displays all the webcam images available in Prince William Sound. Weather forecasts are useful, but a real time picture is worth a thousand of them. Another cutting edge tool is an interactive map server that display selectable layers. The map of an area of interest by overlaid by real-time weather , forecast data, climatology data, and readings from nearby recording stations. Go to this map of Prince William Sound and try using this product. It would be a wonderful tool to develop in other parts of the country.
Take some time to explore the AOOS website, there is a wealth of information available and it will provide you with a hint of what's being done in eleven other regions of the United States.
