From CORIE to the future:
Scaling up coastal-margin observing systems
Antonio M. Baptista, Ph.D.
Oregon Health & Science University
Wednesday, March 1, 2006
Pacific Forum – 3:00 p.m.
Over the last decade, CORIE was developed as a multi-purpose, cross-scale, end-to-end coastal-margin observatory for the Columbia River. With observation, modeling and information sub-systems, CORIE focuses on physical properties and their ecosystem implications. CORIE products have opened the opportunity for innovative scientific and management thinking. For instance, collaboration among biologists and physical oceanographers led to the development and use of semi-empirical metrics of physical habitat opportunities for juvenile salmon in the estuary and plume environment. These metrics, built from multi-year databases of simulated circulation, have been used to address management and operational issues including salmon survival, navigation improvements, and flow regulation.
CORIE concepts and technologies are one of the anchors for a pilot project of the U.S. Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS). The pilot project is being conducted under the umbrella of the Northwest Association of Ocean Observing Systems (NANOOS), and extends to the estuaries and shorelines of Oregon and Washington.
Leveraging and abstracting from the NANOOS experience, we will discuss the potential and challenges of expanding the observation, modeling and information infrastructure of CORIE into regional and national scale, next-generation observation and prediction systems. Illustrations will be drawn primarily from (a) the integration and expansion of existing observation networks in Pacific Northwest estuaries, and (b) a system for rapid deployment of estuarine forecasts across the continental US coastal margin.
Next: Choanoflagellates and the unicellular ancestry of animals