since 1972, when NOAA began its 

 monitoring program. But it wasn't 

 until 10 years later that the system 

 was perfected to account for 

 moisture in the atmosphere that 

 distorted the measurements. 



Supplying the fishermen with 

 temperatures current enough to be 

 useful was another barrier to 

 marketing the technology. 



Jim Bahen, a Sea Grant marine 

 advisory specialist, has worked with 

 fishermen since 1983 to track 

 changes in the Gulf Stream's route 

 past North Carolina. After a modest 

 start using observations from 

 several U.S. Coast Guard stations, 

 Bahen today distributes a chart from 

 the Environmental Weather Service 

 in Miami. He mails the chart 

 weekly to 120 fishermen and 

 marinas with localized information 

 on the width, speed and temperature 

 of the Gulf Stream. 



Fishermen, he says, were 

 frustrated by the guesswork in- 

 volved in finding the Gulf Stream 

 before satellite aids. 



"We'd always wondered where 

 the Gulf Stream was," Bahen says. 

 "We'd get on the radio and talk 

 about it, but we really didn't know." 



Today, angler interest in the 

 charts is high, and it peaks at the 

 start of spring with the first billfish 

 tournaments. Gene Long, owner of 

 Motts Channel Seafood, says the 

 charts give anglers a leg up in high- 

 stakes contests that cost from $250 

 to $600 to enter and run up ex- 

 penses topping $10,000 a week. 



In addition to Bahen's efforts, 

 private companies also peddle 

 charts to fishermen showing the 

 Gulf Stream and temperature 

 gradients. But for anglers who want 

 up-to-the-hour sea-surface tempera- 

 tures, the MEAS department at 

 NCSU is the only operation in 

 North Carolina that can tap directly 

 into the satellite data bank. 



This fall, the university installed 



equipment to access East Coast 

 temperatures from Cuba to Nova 

 Scotia as the satellites pass overhead 

 two to three times a day. A system for 

 marketing charts of North Carolina's 

 offshore waters is still in the works. 

 But Pietrafesa says he wants to place 

 the late-breaking images into the 



hands of subscribing fishermen by 

 spring, possibly using a 900 number 

 and faxes. 



Such a system would cut down 

 dramatically on the delays — 

 sometimes as long as three days — 

 that have been unavoidable in 



Continued 



Oceanographic Remote Sensing 



79 77 • 75 



Researchers at NCSU can chart the surface temperatures in North Carolina's 

 offshore waters using satellite readings of thermal infrared radiation emitting 

 from the ocean. This image was created from over 250,000 pixels of data. 



COASTWATCH 5 



