Coastal Observing in Your Community
Webinar Series

Dr. Hashemi-Beni’s presentation discusses harnessing geospatial data science and remote sensing data fusion for flood mapping. The need for fast processing and classification of massive remote sensing datasets for near real-time monitoring of floods and other rapidly changing events makes a compelling argument for integrating deep learning methods into sensing approaches to create fast and accurate flood maps. These maps can provide crucial information for delineating flood-affected areas, assessing damage (e.g., roads, bridges, infrastructures), and feeding models that predict the vulnerability of inland and coastal areas to flooding.

Beginning in April 2024, the Gulf of Mexico Coastal Ocean Observing System (GCOOS) and SECOORA are joining forces to co-host a webinar series. The goal of this webinar series, Building Synergy Across the US MBON & Ocean Acidification Networks, is to advance science in support of resource management and the blue economy by strengthening collaborations across the Marine Biodiversity Observation Network and regional Ocean Acidification Networks (GCAN and SOCAN). This month’s speakers, Dr. Nathan Furey (Coastal New England Marine Biodiversity Observation Network & University of New Hampshire) and Jessie Turner (International Alliance to Combat Ocean Acidification), discussed Ecosystem Services and the Blue Economy.

Beginning in April 2024, the Gulf of Mexico Coastal Ocean Observing System (GCOOS) and SECOORA are joining forces to co-host a webinar series. The goal of this webinar series, Building Synergy Across the US MBON & Ocean Acidification Networks, is to advance science in support of resource management and the blue economy by strengthening collaborations across the Marine Biodiversity Observation Network and regional Ocean Acidification Networks (GCAN and SOCAN). Dr. Xingping Hu, Texas A&M University Corpus-Christi/Harte Research Institute, covers ocean acidification and Dr. Marissa Nuttall, Research Specialist, Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary, covers the Marine Biodiversity Observation Network.

Beginning in April 2024, the Gulf of Mexico Coastal Ocean Observing System (GCOOS) and SECOORA are joining forces to co-host a webinar series. The goal of this webinar series, Building Synergy Across the US MBON & Ocean Acidification Networks, is to advance science in support of resource management and the blue economy by strengthening collaborations across the Marine Biodiversity Observation Network and regional Ocean Acidification Networks (GCAN and SOCAN). The second webinar in this series focused on techniques that help us monitor ocean animals. Speakers explored everything from acoustics to eDNA.

Beginning in April 2024, the Gulf of Mexico Coastal Ocean Observing System (GCOOS) and SECOORA are joining forces to co-host a webinar series. The goal of this webinar series, Building Synergy Across the US MBON & Ocean Acidification Networks, is to advance science in support of resource management and the blue economy by strengthening collaborations across the Marine Biodiversity Observation Network and regional Ocean Acidification Networks (GCAN and SOCAN). To kick-off this series, Dr. Kim Yates (GCAN, USGS) described the goals, objectives, and intended outcomes of this initiative. Dr. Ana Palacio (NOAA AOML) and Gabrielle Canonico (NOAA IOOS) provide an overview of the OA community and MBON initiatives, including how this will fit into the series.

This presentation discussed basic climate change and sea level science at the global level, then narrowed the focus onto what is happening in different regions of the U.S. with a focus on the Southeast. Historical water level trends and Regional Sea Level Rise projections and trajectories were illustrated and discussed (based on the SLR science included in NCA5). The presentation led into regional impacts such as more frequent high tide flooding, compound flooding, coastal erosion, and expansion of coastal floodplains. Finally the presentation highlighted related data, tools, and training resources from NOAA’s Digital Coast.

This talk focused on the COAST Lab’s work on the development and distribution of low-cost sensors for water level and water quality, the operation and analysis of water quality data from the SeaHawk/HawkEye CubeSat satellite mission, and a sensor-equipped surfboard fin for coastal research named Smartfin.

Dr. Zhang and his team are working with NOAA (CO-OPS, OCS, IOOS) and regional organizations (SECOORA) to develop a new operational Southeast Coastal Operational Forecast System (SECOFS) based on the work they have done on the Surge and Tide Operational Forecast System (STOFS). SECOFS will include enhancement of the coupling infrastructure itself to be compliant with the Unified Forecast System (UFS). SECOFS will also comply with NOAA efforts to develop a generic coastal flood modeling skill assessment and evaluation infrastructure for operational models. Zhang’s team is also supporting the development of coupling capability for remapping 2D/3D fields for conversion of ocean model results to UFS downstream applications, such as safe and efficient navigation, risk reduction, and total water level.

Mote Marine Laboratory’s Beach Conditions Reporting System (BCRS) is an online public information and engagement tool that utilizes trained volunteers for regular conditions reporting at 60 coastal locations across three states and encourages the public to participate in community science. BCRS reports aid the public in making informed decisions by providing information on current surf conditions, crowds, debris, drift algae, jellyfish, and certain effects that are commonly associated with the occurrence of harmful algal blooms such as Florida red tide. In addition to protecting public health and enhancing the experiences of beachgoers and water enthusiasts, the BCRS serves as an educational tool with FAQs, infographics, educational videos, and additional information and data resources available on the website and mobile app. The data collected through the BCRS also aids in scientific research, environmental monitoring, and resource management.

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) continues to be a world leader in the collection, processing, quality-assurance, and dissemination of water data collected through the multi-faceted Water Observing Systems (WOS) network. This “network of networks” is comprised of a collection of monitoring locations across all fifty states and several territories that are operated by USGS personnel through federal appropriations and hundreds of cooperative agreements. This “network of networks” consists of surface water, groundwater, and atmospheric data collection efforts. It’s primary component is the USGS national stream gaging network of more than 8,400 real-time streamflow stations, which was first established in 1889 on the Rio Grande River near Embudo, New Mexico. Groundwater data are collected with the National Groundwater Monitoring Network and Climate Response Network of wells. Water quality data are collected with the National Water-Quality Network for both surface water and groundwater. Atmospheric quality data are collected via the National Atmospheric Deposition Program. These national networks are augmented by state and regional data collection efforts through the USGS cooperative program and other initiatives—and all performed by USGS field crews located across the country. The USGS continues to invest and improve in the WOS through investments in the Next-Generation Water Observing Systems (NGWOS), Hazards, and National Hydrologic Monitoring programs. Ongoing research into ways to collect water data reliably, safely, and more cost-effectively will also be presented. This continued investment into the technologies and processes used to operate the WOS will ensure that the USGS continues to lead in the collection and analyses of water data worldwide.

Pelagic Sargassum is a brown macroalgae abundant in the Sargasso Sea and Gulf of Mexico. Since 2011, a continuous Sargassum belt extending from west Africa to the Gulf of Mexico is found to be recurrent every summer since 2011 (except 2013), causing many environmental, ecological, and economical problems in many nations and coastal states. While understanding the bloom formation and inter-annual changes is still a matter of active research, a Sargassum Watch System (SaWS) generates customized near real-time satellite imagery to monitor and track large Sargassum mats. Integration of surface currents makes SaWS a simple tool to forecast short-term Sargassum movement. Based on SaWS, monthly bulletins of current and future Sargassum outlooks are generated and distributed to various stakeholders. Further research is required to understand bloom mechanisms to improve Sargassum forecasts, and to develop better data products to improve monitoring in nearshore waters.

Webinar hosted to discover, access, and analyze coastal data for Georgia (including the Sapelo Island National Estuarine Research Reserve SWMP data) via the SECOORA Data System.

Few long-term monitoring programs with nationally coordinated practices are in place for tracking water quality changes across U.S. coastal waterbodies. In states where shellfish are harvested, regulatory offices collect fecal indicator bacteria concentrations along with additional water quality measurements from coastal waterbodies to understand in which waterways shellfish can safely be harvested for human consumption. Many states have collected these data for decades, creating impressive long-term records of coastal water quality that can potentially fill gaps in existing water quality monitoring programs. A recent SECOORA-funded project provided resources to compile water quality data collected by regulatory offices from shellfish harvest waters into a unified database called “ShellBase“. In this talk, presenters will outline how ShellBase is organized, and present two case studies demonstrating how ShellBase data can be used to produce management-relevant insights and tools.

Vela, a self-navigating sailboat fitted with several sensors to monitor the surface, patrolled the northern portion of Lake Okeechobee during the entire year in 2021 as part of an effort to better understand the onset, development and die-off of harmful algal blooms (HAB). Vela was fitted to transmit data in near real-time to respond with field checkups when high values of chlorophyll and phycocyanin were detected (pigments characterizing HABs) or adjust the route to explore data ‘hot spots’ in greater depth. The sailboat patrolled the lake during all weather conditions collecting other HAB-related parameters, including turbidity (backscatter), temperature, conductivity, dissolved oxygen, and atmospheric conditions above the surface. Vela was also equipped with an ADCP to monitor the 3-dimensional velocity structure of the water column. After a year of measurements (287 operational days), more than 4 million data points per variable at a very high spatial and temporal resolution were collected. Overall, blooms were detected as early as February while missed by the regular monitoring program. Furthermore, the large fluctuations observed in the recorded pigment data are much more complex than those captured by stationary continuous monitoring sensors. This is a clear indication that the spatial structure in the lake has significant variability and that single-point monitoring, even at high frequency, is not enough to characterize the evolution of HABs in the lake. Spatial patterns from a continuously moving platform are challenging to interpret, but it was found that projecting the path onto transects into a space-time plane gave enough resolution to identify events of bloom formation, displacement or growth, and dissipation. The patterns obtained with Vela complement lake-wide observation from satellite-derived products, as we could gather data independently of weather and cloud coverage. There will be discussion of the complexity of fluorometric measurements and sensor sensitivity in a very turbid environment and the challenges/benefits of utilizing an autonomous surface vehicle in this environment.

This study presents a 28-year (1993-2020), high-resolution (4-km) ocean reanalysis that estimates historical changes in the northwestern Atlantic that covers from the eastern edge of Nova Scotia to the north coast of Venezuela, including the Gulf of Maine, Middle Atlantic Bight, South Atlantic Bight, Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean Sea, and western Sargasso Sea. Through combination of the Regional Ocean Modeling System with ensemble data assimilation of satellite and in-situ observations the regional ocean circulation states are represented. These circulation states are characterized by energetic western boundary currents, mesoscale eddies, and strong freshwater input resulting in highly complex spatial-temporal variability. The accuracy of ocean reanalysis is systematically evaluated with innovation errors utilizing available observations. The resulting four-dimensional climatological atlas of water mass properties and ocean currents, representing a 28-year synthesis between model and observations, are then presented. The study also includes extremal analysis techniques to estimate sea level changes, the extreme values of near surface and near-bottom currents, surface and bottom ocean temperature. This reanalysis provides a realistic physical and dynamic framework to support climate change studies, inform varied decision-making processes, including those for coastal resilience, navigation, marine renewable energy, water quality, pollution transport, and living resource management.

Major ocean currents can generate hazardous cross-currents near some ports. At the south Florida ports of Miami, Everglades, and Palm Beach, high cross-currents occur irregularly. Cross-currents can persist for hours to days as meanders in the Florida Current / Gulf Stream shift its position westward onto the port access channels. The technical webinar will overview the initial results of a prototype machine learning algorithm being developed to predict the probability of high cross-currents near Port of Miami.

Understanding the drivers of animal movement and space use is highly valuable for an appreciation of ecosystem functioning, the provisioning of services, and how to best conserve threatened ecosystems. This is especially true for recreational sportfish in coastal ecosystems, some of the most productive yet anthropogenically degraded ecosystems of the world. Florida Bay, the largest estuary in Florida, has consistently experienced anthropogenic alteration and degradation since the development of the South Florida canal system in the mid-1900’s. This includes 2 large-scale seagrass die-offs, one in the late 1980’s and one in 2015. It also supports a large recreational sportfishing industry valued at $239 million a year. However, despite the ecological and economic importance of recreational sportfish, the impact of the seagrass die-offs on recreational sportfish movement and space use has never been examined. Jonathan Rodemann and his team in the Coastal Fisheries Lab at Florida International University are investigating the drivers of Spotted Seatrout space use within Florida Bay. Specifically, they are interested in how temperature drives space use and whether space use is based on temperature, habitat composition, or habitat configuration. This webinar presents preliminary findings from this study.

Rip currents are responsible for 80% of beach rescues and approximately 100 deaths each year. They are as dangerous as they are difficult to detect or predict. NOAA has released the first ever national rip current model to provide critical beach safety information to beach-goers across the country. The machine learning model predicts the future likelihood of hazardous rip currents more accurately than previous prediction approaches and offers hourly predictions, every kilometer alongshore, up to six days in advance. A UC Santa Cruz and NOAA team is investigating remote optical technologies for detecting rip currents from images and video streams. Approaches using both machine learning methods and optical flow analysis methods are applied to detect rip currents in realtime. Hybrid approaches are also being investigated. This webinar will provide an overview of the new NOAA rip current model and how machine learning and flow analysis methods are used to identify rip currents.

Faculty from the University of Georgia (UGA) Marine Extension and Georgia Sea Grant (MAREX-GSG) will present “Water Shapes our Planet and our Lives,” a new, virtual curriculum that teaches water, weather and climate topics through the 21st century lens of climate change. The curriculum covers traditional science standards for upper elementary and middle school students (grades 4-6) and includes ocean and climate literacy to prepare youth to engage in climate change conversations. The curriculum contains a series of interactive lessons created using Pear Deck for Google Slides and video tutorials of hands-on activities that reinforce each lesson. A limited number of activity kits are available by request, and a final activity is available for educators to prompt their students to communicate about climate change and how it impacts animals on Earth.

Finding and using data is an important skill for understanding the world around you. Through the SECOORA data system users can discover, access, and analyze data from the Southeast to answer questions about a variety of topics. The SECOORA Data Portal allows users to:
• search and download real-time and historical data • compare datasets from different stations
• generate and share custom data views
• access metadata for SECOORA stations
• access regional and sub-regional models (including coastal circulation, water quality and fisheries habitat models)
This webinar will highlight key features of the SECOORA Data Portal and the new Text-a-Buoy program. Axiom Data Science will showcase new Data Portal capabilities including:
• faster display of dense profiling data sets
• improved information on sensor and station pages faster chart loading
• ERDDAP data downloads which automatically incorporate time/depth dimensions
• ability to select time periods on charts.
Learn how the SECOORA data system is using data to meet the needs of users and how to make the data work for you.

Sand may not immediately come to mind as a critical ocean resource. However, amongst its ecological and socioeconomic values are offshore fisheries habitat, sea turtle nesting and beach tourism. Between 2008-2018, there were 208 beach nourishment projects using over 105 million cubic yards of sand along the southeast Atlantic coast. Some locations are facing sand shortages, looking further offshore to identify viable beach sand. Multiple government agencies, universities, and private engineers are part of the effort to identify and manage sand resources. Over the past year, we engaged these constituents to understand existing resources and information gaps related to sand management. Join us to hear the results of this effort and learn how you can directly access the tools and resources that were uncovered.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been investigated since the 1940s, before there were electronic computers and became a research field in 1956 at a workshop at Dartmouth where the term “Artificial Intelligence” was first used. There have been many disappointments in the quest to build AI systems; however, the last 10 years, extraordinary capabilities have been demonstrated. The building blocks for AI are High-Performance Computers and Big Data which are used to estimate parameters of, or train, algorithms called Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) to execute AI related functions. The amount of data required to train an ANN increases as the number of parameters increases. Big Data allows ANNs to have many layers, so they are called Deep Networks and Deep Learning refers to training Deep Networks. Deep Networks and Deep Learning have become overly hyped with many who extol their virtues and few that describe the weaknesses. Unfortunately, they can be unstable and produce bizarre outputs. This talk covers inherent and difficult flaws in current AI systems and some methods for mitigating the flaws. Examples from environmental sensing will be given.

Learn how a new project is developing an integrated coastal water predictive capability to deliver new water intelligence products and information vital for decision making both during high-impact events, such as hurricanes, nor’easters, and storm surge, and for routine water management, including marine ecosystem health, transportation, and agriculture.

The Estuarine Soundscape Observatory Network in the Southeast monitors underwater sounds using passive acoustic recorders in four estuaries of South Carolina. Soundscape data are used to monitor animal behavior at multiple levels of biological complexity (i.e., from snapping shrimp to fish to marine mammals) and at time scales ranging from minutes to years. The soundscape approach allows the ability to ‘eavesdrop’ on key behaviors of marine animals that can change rapidly or gradually in response to environmental changes and human impacts, thus providing a measure of resilience or shifting baselines for economically important or protected species. This webinar will discuss how passive acoustics can provide information on the ecological response of estuaries to climate variability and can assist in monitoring fish reproductive output of an estuary.

Continental shelves, the regions where society meets the sea, come in varying widths. Very narrow shelves, as occur on the west coast of the United States, are readily impacted by the adjacent deep ocean, and therefore tend to be rich in nutrients and highly productive. Very wide shelves, such as the West Florida Continental Shelf (WFS), are generally insulated from deep ocean influences, and therefore may have nutrient deplete (or oligotrophic) sectors. Two factors are in play. The first is how far landward deep ocean influences may extend onto the shelf. For the WFS, this distance is about 30 km. The second factor, how far seaward land influences extend onto the shelf, as may be seen in salinity fronts associated with freshwater drainage. For the WFS, these extend seaward by about 10-20 km. Given a width that is generally in excess of 120 km, much of the WFS lacks either direct deep ocean or land influences and considered to be oligotrophic. But this begs the question: How can an the oligotrophic WFS be so productive? The answer lies in the “Pressure Point,” the southwest corner of the WFS located near the Dry Tortugas. In this webinar, we will explore how this special “Pressure Point” region impacts the WFS, affecting both its fisheries ecology and harmful algal blooms and, in turn, how the WFS impacts the Gulf of Mexico Loop Current’s ability to penetrate into the Gulf of Mexico.

As incongruous at it seems, the northern Gulf of Mexico supports intensive natural resource extraction (fisheries, oil and gas), but is one of the most poorly mapped ocean areas of the United States. Only about 5% of the West Florida Shelf (WFS) was mapped prior to 2016. Bathymetric mapping identifies the characteristics of the bottom topography (rugosity), but cannot, in and of itself, be used to characterize habitat types nor utilization and importance of target areas to a variety of biota. By employing in situ towed video systems, one can pair imagery and sonar mapping products to define habitat types and calculate the relative and absolute densities of biota associated with each. These mapping products have considerable utility in defining essential fish and protected species habitats, for locating and assessing potential marine protected areas, and for identifying areas that should be excluded for consideration from offshore development activities. As a result of a grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation’s Gulf Environmental Benefits Fund (GBEF), the project undertook a large-scale bathymetric and habitat classification program on the WFS. This program resulted in an additional 2,700 km2 of high-valued habitat being mapped. A number of candidate areas for additional protections and ongoing recovery efforts have been identified. This webinar outlines the process by which potential target areas are evaluated, the development of integrated habitat assessment products, and the value of such products supporting resource management and recovery planning.

Very high-resolution (i.e. ~ 5-meter pixel) satellite imagery has proven effective to map upland, wetland, and benthic ecosystems, but challenges in data acquisition and storage, algorithm training, and image processing have prevented efficient, large-scale and time-series mapping of these data until recently. Here I will describe the Spectral and Object-based Automated Land-cover Classification of High-resolution Imagery protocol that we developed and applied to 20,000 WorldView images run on supercomputers to map land cover across the entire US Gulf of Mexico coastline. The method is fully automated and completed the mapping 200 times faster than existing methods. Multiple products, including wetland maps and bathymetry, are output and mosaicked for end-user applications.

In the Carolinas, rip currents kill more people than lightning, tornadoes, flooding, and hurricanes. Since 2000 there have been 143 rip current related fatalities and thousands of rescues. While these hazards are confined to the surf zone, they can have far-reaching impacts given the transient nature of people visiting the beaches from around the country. As a result, building resiliency for coastal hazards should not just be considered for those in coastal zones, but should be inclusive of a highly mobile population. Rip current fatality statistics have provided significant insight – including analyses of age, gender, and specific circumstances that have led to drownings. The silver lining is that these metrics can be used to develop better public safety messaging and enhancements to rip current forecasting. In addition, the 2019 Hurricane Lorenzo case illustrates significant challenges to public messaging, especially with powerful storms which remain far out to sea. Swells from Hurricane Lorenzo directly led to 7 U.S. East Coast rip current deaths, even as the storm remained over 2000 miles offshore, and in-spite of attempts to increase the visibility of the threat with National Weather Service (NWS) products and social media platforms. The NWS Rip Current Program continues to evolve in multiple ways to address the education, decision support, and forecast aspects of this coastal problem. The key to improving the program and building community resilience across the Nation is through strong partnerships and collaborative opportunities with a wide spectrum of partners. This presentation will discuss rip current information, important demographics and statistics, the Hurricane Lorenzo case, and future forecast and outreach efforts.

Model skill in forecasting the intensity of tropical storms has lagged behind the ability to predict their paths. Capable of operating and transmitting data to shore during hurricane-force winds, gliders are proving to be effective platforms for near-real time data collection of 3-dimensional information about ocean heat content and density stratification that may regulate transfer of energy between the ocean and atmosphere. Data from gliders deployed in advance of Hurricane Florence in 2018 demonstrate different strategies for informing ocean and atmospheric models with critical real-time data that can improve the ability to forecast tropical storm intensity.

Fish are constantly moving to seek prey, hide from predators, find good habitat, and mate. Some species have small movements, restricted to a bay or river, while other species exhibit large movements that cross state and international borders along the coast. Scientists are using electronic tagging technology to monitor the movements of fishes on small and large scales. An electronic tag, inserted or attached to a fish or sea turtle, is detected by devices in the water called receivers. The compatibility of equipment, specifically the ability of the receiver to detect any tag regardless of who deployed it, has given rise to large networks of scientists sharing detection data. The FACT Network is a community of like-minded scientists that have been sharing detection data since 2007. Currently, the FACT Network extends from New England down to southwest Florida and into the Bahamas and U.S. Caribbean. Novel discoveries have included an annual tripletail migration from Georgia into Florida and a seasonal shark nursery habitat along the beach near Cape Canaveral. Ongoing research includes projects on spatial management of species and predicting migration shifts in response to our changing climate. By sharing data and working together, scientists can tackle bigger questions on bigger scales, helping to effectively manage our aquatic resources.

The Loop Current, a part of the western boundary current (i.e. the Gulf Stream) system of the Atlantic Ocean, is of major importance to the circulation of the Gulf of Mexico. The Loop Current enters the Gulf flowing north through the Yucatan Channel, and exits through the Florida Straits between Key West and Cuba, in a clockwise loop. Loop Current intrusions into the eastern Gulf sometimes may extend as far north as the Alabama/Mississippi continental slope, but also can retreat to a position where the flow is a direct path between the Yucatan Channel and the Florida Straits. At between 4- and 18-month intervals, an extended Loop Current irregularly sheds large clockwise rotating eddies into the western basin, strongly influencing flows there as well as on the Louisiana/Texas and Mexican continental slopes. This webinar will discuss what has been learned from recent major observational studies that involve satellite remote sensing, in-situ moorings (measuring currents, temperature and salinity), and both deep and surface drifters. Major results include explanations of circulation processes that lead to separations of Loop Current eddies, and the radiation of deep energetic flows into the northwestern Gulf of Mexico.

OceanReports is the most comprehensive web-based spatial assessment tool for the U.S. ocean and is the largest ocean-based marine spatial planning tool in the world. Designed to improve decision-making and increase transparency for ocean and coastal users and resource managers, OceanReports contains approximately 100 distinct data layers and is capable of analyzing ocean neighborhoods for energy and minerals, natural resources (including species and habitat), transportation and infrastructure, oceanographic and biophysical conditions, and the local ocean economy for any area shape or size in the entire U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). OceanReports was developed through a partnership between the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the Department of Energy (DOE), and utilizes new and authoritative data from MarineCadastre.gov and other trusted sources.

During Friday morning September 14, 2018, Hurricane Florence made landfall near Wrightsville Beach, NC. The slow-moving hurricane produced historic rainfall across North Carolina, dozens of tornadoes, a long duration of strong winds, and significant storm surge. Florence created unique public safety and decision support challenges for emergency managers and the National Weather Service. The webinar discussed these issues along with the implications of the storm’s unusual track. This presentation will also include information about Florence in context with the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO) and an overview of the devastating flooding events which have impacted the Carolinas beginning with Hurricane Floyd in 1999.

Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) have become more prominent in the public’s eye, as increases in the frequency and duration of HAB events have made national news. These HAB events, whether they are caused by freshwater or coastal organisms, are a trend that need regular monitoring to better predict where, when and potentially why they may occur so that their harmful effects, like fish and marine animal mortalities as well as human illnesses, can be better prevented and mitigated.
NOAA’s Phytoplankton Monitoring Network is a citizen science volunteer based program in which volunteers are trained to look for the presence of organisms that could potentially cause a harmful algal bloom.
This presentation will touch on methods used for training new volunteers, including smartphone applications, storyboards, digital microscopes, and advanced flow cytometry as well as how volunteer generated data are used by scientists to develop and refine new models of prediction for HABs and climate change.

Coastal flooding represents a growing threat to the City of Savannah and adjoining areas in Chatham County. Recent brushes with Hurricane Matthew in 2016 and Hurricane Irma in 2017 saw storm surges of 7+ feet at the county’s only two tide gauges, shutting down county schools and businesses for days. During these extreme weather events, strong winds interacted with an extremely intricate network of coastal rivers, tributaries, and marshlands to create a complex pattern of flooding that varied by 2-4ft over a distance of several miles. The Smart Sea Level Sensor project (https://www.sealevelsensors.org) aims to install a large network of internet-enabled water level sensors across flood-vulnerable Chatham County. This is done via a working partnership between officials from the Chatham Emergency Management Agency (CEMA), the City of Savannah and a diverse team of scientists and engineers from Georgia Tech. The project team has installed 8 sensors through a grant from the Georgia Tech Smart Communities program (http://www.smartcities.ipat.gatech.ed…). The planned deployment of 50-100 sea level sensors will stretch from Interstate 95 to Tybee Island – capturing a wide range of tributary sizes, orientation, and building densities. The data collection will be complemented by a suite of modeling tools to inform flood risk and vulnerability. This includes a high-resolution coastal ocean model as well as an integrated hydrological model to capture surface runoff during high precipitation events. Taken together, the framework enables the assessment of short- and long-term coastal flooding risk and vulnerability. This information is required to inform planning for flood mitigation strategies. Strategically, some sensor installations will be at middle and high schools in Chatham County to enable educational experiences for students. This is the first project of its kind in the region. The goal is to provide a template for expansions of this technology and community stakeholder framework to other areas of vulnerable coastline along the southeastern US.

Life in the sea supports many industry sectors and is enjoyed by large numbers of people living in coastal and in inland areas. The Marine Biodiversity Observation Network (MBON) links groups engaged in ocean observation to track changes in the diversity and abundance of life in the sea. This information is needed to measure whether the benefits that people derive from different marine organisms are affected or not as we find ways to sustain their uses while the ocean is changing.
In the region covered by the Southeast Coastal Ocean Observing Regional Association (SECOORA), MBON works in partnership with the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary and the Integrated Ocean Observing System to integrate traditional and new means of tracing changes in marine biodiversity. We developed novel environmental DNA methods and are developing indicators to evaluate changes in living communities. Dynamic ‘seascapes’ based on remote sensing extend the spatial footprint of in situ data to track dynamic biogeographic regions. We promote adoption of the Darwin Core data schema as a way to standardize archiving and distribution of marine biology data. This is essential if we want to understand patterns of change in marine life in any locality in the context of changes happening over large areas, and broadly share applications to do so.
Internationally, MBON works with the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS), the Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS), the IOC Ocean Best Practices Group, and others to promote documentation of marine biodiversity for the benefit of society. The goal is to integrate marine biological Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs) and Essential Ocean Variables (EOVs) into the existing and planned national and international ocean observing systems. We invite the IOOS community to join in the dialogue with stakeholders and MBON to refine these ideas and advance an integrated system to observe life in the sea.

As a hurricane moves over the Gulf of Mexico’s Loop Current, hurricanes often intensify to severe (Category 3) status due to the deep warm water and the sustained air-sea fluxes feeding the storm. Given that the Gulf is a semi-enclosed basin, these intensifying hurricanes will make landfall around the Gulf and significantly impact coastal ocean processes. In this context, it is critical to understand the 3-dimensional oceanic velocity response of the Loop Current and its complex warm and cold eddy field to hurricane forcing. This allows scientists to accurately evaluate dynamical loading on marine oil facilities and to assess mixing and dispersion of oil products through the water column. In addition, it is critical to understand the vertical extent of wind-forced ocean processes such as upwelling and downwelling of isotherms. In this context, measurements of ocean current, temperature and salinity fields prior, during, and subsequent to hurricane passage are critical to resolve these upwelling and mixing processes. Measurements also provide reference data sets to initialize, evaluate, and validate coupled forecast models. As part of NOAA’s Hurricane Field Program over the past two decades, profilers have been deployed in the LC from NOAA research aircraft during hurricanes Isidore and Lili, Katrina and Rita, Gustav and Ike, Isaac and Nate. During Nate, the Gulf of Mexico Research Institute sponsored EM-APEX floats measured the hurricane-induced ocean response to the strong winds. These profiler measurements are cast into 2-dimensional satellite fields derived from multiple missions to estimate oceanic heat content, mixed layer and isotherm depths, and sea surface temperatures as part of ongoing research with scientists from NOAA-NESDIS. The oceanic response affects physical processes as well as biochemical processes and the ecosystem through upwelling, mixing and transport throughout the water column.

A goal of NOAA’s National Ocean Service is to increase coastal intelligence with a commitment to integrating scientifically-defensible data, models, and decision-support tools to improve the ability of decision makers scaling from federal agencies to the private individual. Implementation and maintenance of robust data management and communications infrastructures are critical challenges for development of successful collaborative scientific and management initiatives. Enhancing and expanding the value and utility of the data provided by individual observing systems and monitoring programs is of utmost importance. To be valuable, decision support tools must be able to integrate and assimilate data from multiple observing systems and monitoring programs in order for management communities to address societal needs beyond the original purpose of any individual system/program. This webinar will provide an overview of the value derived by integrating data and sound science in support of public health and economic vitality decision making. Examples will be provided to illustrate instances where management decisions have benefited from decision support tools that make use of data integrated across multiple coastal and ocean observing systems.

Laurent Cherubin, FAU’s Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute
April 24, 2018
Many commercially important reef fishes in the Caribbean and southeast US have been overfished to the point that some species, like the Nassau grouper, is considered threatened and on the endangered species list. Mature adults of some species gather in large numbers every year for two to three months at specific locations to spawn.
Once located, the spawning aggregations become an easy target that can be reduced until it can no longer be formed. Most grouper and snapper spawning aggregations in the region have been extirpated and the few that have been documented are vulnerable unless protection can be enacted.
We have developed and demonstrated a novel, autonomous approach to conduct fishery independent surveys in order to search and discover unreported aggregations by mapping the underwater acoustic landscape using an unmanned platform in areas that surround currently known spawning aggregations during the spawning season.
While passive acoustic methods have previously been used for fisheries management and stock assessment, the platforms and algorithms are not currently mature enough to allow for advanced autonomy, drastically limiting the spatial and temporal range, and resulting in considerable operational costs.
In addition to discovering previously unknown spawning sites, the development of novel algorithms, and passive acoustic and environmental sensor systems enables monitoring along with automated detection, classification and surveillance of fish vocalizations.
As well as providing significantly finer scale detection with low latency, this innovative approach also enables greater on-board intelligence and autonomy; reduced launch/recovery and satellite data cost thus further reducing the overall operational costs, while enhancing performance for ocean monitoring missions.

Building on many years of stakeholder feedback, SECOORA and its technical partner, Axiom Data Science, have been working on a significant overhaul to the SECOORA Data Portal. The updated portal is currently available in beta version (v2.5) to give users access to new features and a revamped design to get more out of the SECOORA data services. The new portal exists on a platform that is more responsive to long time series observations, and has been updated with more advanced discovery and sharing capabilities. The portal offers sophisticated charting abilities, including comparisons between data sources, binning by time, and plotting of climatologies and anomalies. Users can create custom compilations of sensor and model outputs, which can be shared to spotlight environmental events or geographic locations. Ocean profiling sensors, such as gliders, have been enhanced to display depth charts, interpolation via kriging, and 4D interactive charts. Feedback from test users on the new interface will be integrated into the final, operational version that is expected to replace the current one in April 2018. With these new features, the SECOORA Data Portal will serve as a more powerful tool for users to explore relationships and trends in the physical, chemical, and biological data collected from the waters surrounding the southeast coastal region.

Hurricane Irma impacted the west Florida continental shelf (WFS) as it transited the State of Florida from September 10-12, 2017, first making landfall at Cudjoe Key and then again at Naples, as a Category 2 hurricane. The WFS response to Irma is analyzed using a combination of in situ observations and numerical circulation models. The observations include water column velocity, sea surface temperature, winds and sea level. The models are: 1) the West Florida Coastal Ocean Model (WFCOM) that downscales from the deep Gulf of Mexico, across the shelf and into the estuaries by nesting the unstructured grid FVCOM in the Gulf of Mexico HYCOM and 2) the Tampa Bay Coastal Ocean Model (TBCOM) that provides much higher resolution for the Tampa Bay vicinity (Tampa Bay, Sarasota Bay, the Intracoastal Waterway and all of the inlets connecting these with the Gulf of Mexico) by nesting FVCOM in WFCOM.
Both the observations and the model simulations revealed strong upwelling and vertical mixing followed by a downwelling as the storm passed by. This was accompanied by a rapid drop in sea surface temperature by about 4 degrees C and large decreases in sea level with negative surges causing drying in the Florida Bay, Charlotte Harbor, Tampa Bay estuaries and the Big Bend region. The transport and exchange of water between the shelf and the estuaries and between the shelf and the Florida Keys reef track during the hurricane have important ecosystem and sediment transport implications, including an inlet breach that occurred at the Pinellas Co. Shell Key preserve.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in partnership with the University of North Carolina, Institute of Marine Sciences, has developed a water level reporting application.  The application collects and aggregates reports of observed water levels submitted through citizen scientists.  These contributions are photographs with locations and a few simple details that will help weather predictors, scientists, and the public to better visualize and understand changing water levels. This application can be used globally to document high water levels at the coast, such as king tide events, but also far inland, such as snow melt or heavy rainfall events.
Various state and federal partners are currently using water level reports and photographs as communication and model validation tools.  Explore the web-based application: What’s your water level? Or log a report from your mobile device.

Web cameras are transforming how environmental monitoring is conducted. Video data is being used for applications related to transportation and commerce, preparedness and risk reduction, and stewardship of coastal resources.
The NOS Web Camera Applications Testbed (WebCAT) is a one year project that is installing web cameras in five locations for various purposes – counting right whales, spotting rip currents, validating wave run up models, understanding human use of natural resources and more.  This unique project is a public-private partnership leveraging the expertise and capabilities of private, nonprofit and public sectors.

Southeast Coastal Ocean Observing Regional Association (SECOORA) members have worked together since 2007 to develop and continuously improve the Marine Weather Portal (MWP).  The MWP aggregates data provided by the NOAA National Data Buoy Center, National Weather Service (NWS), National Estuarine Research Reserves, IOOS Regional Associations, and other sources into a map-based product specifically developed for the marine community.
The MWP was developed by meteorologists, web designers, data managers, and outreach personnel with the University of North Carolina Wilmington, University of South Carolina, Second Creek Consulting LLC, and NWS offices in coastal states across the Southeast and Gulf of Mexico.  The MWP is currently used to disseminate standardized, consolidated marine information for the SECOORA and Gulf of Mexico Ocean Observing System regions. Explore the portal: http://mwp.secoora.org.

The recent history St. Lucie Estuary has included a devastating harmful algal bloom crisis in 2016 and the passage of Hurricane Irma in 2017. SECOORA member Florida Atlantic University broadcasts real time data from the estuary through the Indian River Lagoon Observatory Network of Environmental Sensors (IRLON). The IRLON network includes nutrient and biogeochemical sensors that provide data on the response of the base of the food chain to the mixing and flows of water in the estuary. This presentation will provide a perspective on how the sources of nutrients and high flow events change the environment in the estuary.

An integrated marine environment prediction system is developed and used to investigate marine physical-biogeochemical variability in the Gulf of Mexico and southeastern U.S. shelf seas. Such variability stem from variations in the shelf circulation, boundary current dynamics, impacts of severe weather forcing, as well as growing population and associated land use practices on transport of carbon and nutrients within terrestrial systems and their delivery to the coastal ocean. We will report our efforts in evaluating the performance of the coupled modeling system via extensive model and data comparisons, as well as findings from a suite of case studies.

SECOORA’s data management and communications (DMAC) system implements the U.S. IOOS recommended standards-based web services that promote interoperability, discovery, efficient data aggregation, access, sharing, visualization, and use of coastal ocean data (physical, chemical, biological and geological). The SECOORA Data Portal has over 4,000 datasets that are accessible. Use the to tool explore, download and visualize ocean and coastal data and models in the Southeastern U.S.
The SECOORA Data Catalog contains searchable, downloadable data from all SECOORA-funded observational and modeling assets that include coastal and offshore stations (atmospheric and oceanographic data), IOOS Priority High Frequency Radar Stations, regional and sub-regional coastal circulation, water quality and fisheries habitat models. The catalog also aggregates data from federal and non-federal real-time and non-real time coastal ocean datasets (in-situ, gliders, profilers, drifters, satellite and models) in the SECOORA region.

The coastal ocean, defined as the continental shelf and the estuaries, is where society meets the sea. It is where bathing and boating abound, where major recreational and commercial fisheries are situated along with maritime commerce hubs, where harmful algal blooms occur, fossil fuels are tapped and alternative energy sources are considered for exploitation, and where tourists and residents simply go to relax. In essence, the coastal ocean is the epicenter for maritime ecosystems services. Managing all of these coastal ocean utilizations, some competitive with one another, and planning for future, sustainable uses, requires the ability to describe the state of the coastal ocean and to predict the effects that may ensue from either naturally occurring or human-induced influences. The state of the coastal ocean is largely determined by the ocean circulation. The circulation is what unites nutrients with light, fueling primary productivity, what determines the water properties in which fish and other organisms reside and what controls the movement of larvae between spawning and settlement regions. The circulation also determines the movement of harmful substances spilled into the sea and the conduct of search and rescue operations. Applications for red tide, gag grouper recruitment and the transport of Deepwater Horizon oil to northern Gulf of Mexico beaches will be discussed.