706 



20 



LABS/ 



INFRASTRUCTURE - 



Laboratories and the 



collection of facilities that 



comprise the 



infrastructure of 



oceanography (e.g. large 



systems of 



instrumentation, such as 



ocean bottom 



seismometers) are as 



unique to the field as the 



research platforms. Again, 



the diversity of the field 



has been translated into 



specific technical strengths 



at individual laboratories. 



The US Navy has 



particular capabilities for 



acoustic studies, for 



example, whereas the 



expertise for developing 



open ocean buoys resides 



at only a handful of 



academic and federal 



laboratories. The optimal exploitation of these facilities can only be attained through a 



program of sustained and active partnerships between .he institutions. 



Subject: Marine Laboratory Networks 

 and Natural Laboratories 



Background: Crowing national 

 security and other US interests in 

 littoral regions together with an 

 emerging S&T capability to 

 adequately address this complex 

 environment, offers an opportunity 

 for interagency partnerships to 

 establish a portfolio of coastal 

 natural laboratories. These would be 

 visited regularly to provide baseline 

 data to understand processes, 

 validate models and algorithms, and 

 to test operational products across 

 the various agencies and 

 participating industry. In this way, a 

 positive feedback of engineering 

 models to fundamental physics and 

 process studies can be used to 

 shorten product development time as 

 well as fidelity/skill. Carefully 

 chosen locations can also serve as 

 ground-truth for remote sensing 

 (acoustic, space, and airborne 

 technioues) and should be co- 

 locatea with fiducial sites wherever 

 possible. Notably, the world's 

 marine laboratories are the 

 repositories of collections and 

 historical data of critical importance 

 for coastal research. They have 

 facilities to provide access to marine 

 habitats, institutional stability , and 

 history of working together. The US 

 National Association of Marine 

 Laboratories is developing a network 

 of US marine laboratories. The 

 terrestrial LTER (long-term ecosystem 

 research) network provides a parallel 

 example. 



Opportunity: A specific 

 opportunity exists, for example, to 

 study biological diversity on a 

 regional scale (the need for 

 regional scale is emphasized in 

 the recent NRC Report, 

 Understanding Marine 

 Biodiversity) and in a sustained 

 way, e.g. lone-term. Habitats 

 would include estuaries 

 (watershed to the coastal ocean), 

 rocky shores, coral reefs, and 

 continental shelves. 



Hurdles: None that are 

 significant, however some 

 agencies may need to be coaxed. 

 Agreement will be needed among 

 laboratories and participants on 

 common measurements. 



Rationale for Partnership: 



Primary driver is mutual 

 leveraging to bring sufficient 

 resources (intellectual as well as 

 fiscal) to bear. The urgency of 

 issues such as loss of biodiversity 

 demand a focussed and concerted 

 effort, only attainable through 

 partnerships. 



Expected Product: Well founded 

 and common basis for algorithms, 

 models, policy and decision aids 

 and sensor performances across 

 US agency mission areas. Not 

 only does this leveraging reduce 

 the costs of gaming these 

 capabilities, but will also reduce 

 costs in the utilization of the 

 knowledge gained. 



Subject: Oceanographic Sensor 

 Communications 



Background: Most of the past 

 oceanographic measurements were 

 taken from ships or moored buoys, 

 and these data have formed the data 

 bases upon which the US 

 government produces its predictions 

 of weather and sonar system 

 performance. It is now evident that 

 many important oceanographic 

 processes are undersampled both 

 temporally and spatially and that 

 there are not enough ships and 

 buoys for accurate models. This has 

 led, especially with the advances in 

 microchip electronics, to remote 

 instrumentation to acquire these 

 data. One of the major problems is 

 that it is often very difficult to 

 transfer these data from instrument 

 to the user. There are basically two 

 approaches: i) transmitting the data 

 by means of a cable, now usually 

 fiber optical and ii) telemetering the 

 data through the ocean surface and 



then a satellite link to the user. 

 Cables are expensive to install 

 especially in the deep ocean while 

 telemetering and satellite links have 

 very limited bandwidths. The most 

 common means is by the French 

 ARCOS system which has very 

 limited bandwidth and is approaching 

 saturation in some regions. Currently, 

 communicating with oceanographic 

 sensors, especially those in the deep 

 sea at long ranges, is often the 

 limiting technology in their use. 



Opportunity: Several options for 

 high data rate communications need 

 to De developed which make data 

 transfer reliable and inexpensive. This 

 would permit obtaining denser and 

 more frequent data for scientific use, 

 commercial applications, and Navy 

 predictions. 



Hurdles: There are several 

 technological hurdles. While optical 

 cables can be placed for long 

 distances, it is not a routine option 



for the scientific community. While 

 wideband satellite military 

 communication systems exist, again, 

 they are not available to the 

 scientific or commercial community. 

 Innovative approaches are needed. 



Rationale for Partnership: The 



academic/scientific and the Navy 

 communities have long had a need 

 for better sampling of oceanographic 

 processes. They, in concert with 

 industry also have the engineering 

 capability of developing improved 

 communication systems. Industry 

 has the ability to make the systems 

 both reliable and inexpensive. 



Expected Product: Mitigating the 

 limitations upon data acquisition 

 would permit the use of more, and 

 more accurate instruments. All of 

 the research needs associated with 

 the national interests identified in 

 this report reciuire that we constantly 

 improve the ability to get data from 

 the sensors. 



