ALBERT

Description: The Alliance for Coastal Technologies (ACT) Workshop "Making Oxygen MeasurementsRoutine Like Temperature" was convened in St. Petersburg, Florida, January 4th - 6th, 2006. Thisevent was sponsored by the University of South Florida (USF) College of Marine Science, anACT partner institution and co-hosted by the Ocean Research Interactive Observatory Networks(ORION). Participants from researcldacademia, resource management, industry, and engineeringsectors collaborated with the aim to foster ideas and information on how to make measuringdissolved oxygen a routine part of a coastal or open ocean observing system.Plans are in motion to develop large scale ocean observing systems as part of the US IntegratedOcean Observing System (100s; see http://ocean.us) and the NSF Ocean Observatory Initiative(001; see http://www.orionprogram.org/00I/default.hl). These systems will require biologicaland chemical sensors that can be deployed in large numbers, with high reliability, and forextended periods of time (years). It is also likely that the development cycle for new sensors issufficiently long enough that completely new instruments, which operate on novel principles,cannot be developed before these complex observing systems will be deployed. The most likelypath to development of robust, reliable, high endurance sensors in the near future is to movethe current generation of sensors to a much greater degree of readiness. The ACT OxygenSensor Technology Evaluation demonstrated two important facts that are related to the need forsensors. There is a suite of commercially available sensors that can, in some circumstances,generate high quality data; however, the evaluation also showed that none of the sensors were ableto generate high quality data in all circumstances for even one month time periods due tobiofouling issues.Many groups are attempting to use oxygen sensors in large observing programs; however, thereoften seems to be limited communication between these groups and they often do not have accessto sophisticated engineering resources. Instrument manufacturers also do not have sufficientresources to bring sensors, which are marketable, but of limited endurance or reliability, to ahigher state of readiness. The goal of this ACT/ORION Oxygen Sensor Workshop was to bringtogether a group of experienced oceanographers who are now deploying oxygen sensors inextended arrays along with a core of experienced and interested academic and industrialengineers, and manufacturers. The intended direction for this workshop was for this group toexchange information accumulated through a variety of sensor deployments, examine failuremechanisms and explore a variety of potential solutions to these problems. One anticipatedoutcome was for there to be focused recommendations to funding agencies on development needsand potential solutions for 02 sensors. (pdf contains 19 pages)

Description: NOAA

Description: Alliance for Coastal Technologies, CBL/UMCES