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SCRIPPS AND SOCIETY FORM PARTNERSHIP
The International SeaKeepers Society is partnering with the
world-renown Scripps Institution of Oceanography to study the
effectiveness of its SeaKeeper 1000™ monitoring system
for potential coastal monitoring sites.
For more than a year Scripps scientists, under Dr. Eric Terrill,
Director of the Coastal Observing Research and Development
Center, have been testing a SeaKeepers system at the end of
the famous Scripps Pier in La Jolla, CA. Dr. Terrill is a
leader in the emerging coastal monitoring effort that has
been mandated for deployment in 11 regions across the US.
Scripps scientists are examining the SeaKeeper 1000™ to understand
other uses of the equipment and to aid the Society in promoting
additional sensor development, covering such pressing marine
issues as pollution, coastal erosion, red tide and other harmful
algal blooms.
Dr. Charles F. Kennel, Director of Scripps (and former Chair
of the NASA Advisory Council), told a meeting of the SeaKeepers
Board of Directors, “We are very pleased at
our new relationship. Your monitoring system is very interesting
to us because our models about the ocean need immense amounts
of data. You have demonstrated an innovative, cost-effective
way to gather more data. Equally important, the people
involved in SeaKeepers are a valuable addition to the voices
articulating that a higher priority must be given to the needs
of this ocean-driven planet.”
For
more than year, the SeaKeeper 1000™ automated ocean and atmospheric monitoring
system has been installed at the Scripps Pier alongside more traditional
ocean monitoring instruments. Thanks largely to Scripps’ independent
evaluation, it is now clear that the SeaKeeper 1000™ has a much wider
application than its original deployment aboard private luxury yachts.
“The SeaKeeper 1000™ equipment has the potential to be deployed
on dozens of piers and other locations as part of the coastal monitoring
network that we have been developing in California,” said Dr. John
Orcutt, Deputy Director of Scripps and the President of the American
Geophysical Union. “The great advantage of the system is that it
provides a uniform approach that greatly eases operations and maintenance
while also providing straightforward comparisons of measurements between
diverse locations. The Society, with its SeaKeeper 1000™, is a valuable
new ally in ocean monitoring.”
“The system’s greatest attribute,” added Dr. Terrill, “is
that its design and construction is flexible, modular and robust. It
is noteworthy that SeaKeepers has partnered with high quality instrument
manufacturers for the sensors. This is very important in ensuring
reliable, long-term operation and measurement comparisons. In addition,
SeaKeepers has already installed a network of some 46 systems on yachts,
cruise liners, commercial vessels and piers. This is an excellent
foundation and provides impetus for manufacturers to develop new sensors
utilizing the system’s standardized architecture. This is all very
exciting as new platforms and locations contribute additional data from
places that otherwise might not have been monitored.” 
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About Scripps
Scripps Institution of Oceanography is America’s oldest and the
world’s largest academic oceanographic institution. For more
than 100 years, Scripps has focused on key global environmental issues
such as climate change, natural disasters, rising sea levels, the collapse
of marine ecosystems, and the growing resistance of diseases to existing
pharmaceuticals. Pioneers in the science of oceanography, Scripps scientists
were among the first to discover rising levels of atmospheric carbon
dioxide and to warn of global warming. Scripps researchers also revolutionized
understanding of fundamental Earth processes, including plate tectonics
and earthquakes, marine ecology, ocean waves and currents, and climate
cycles such as El Niño and La Niña events.
Today, Scripps has hundreds of research projects in more than 60 nations
around the world. Its unparalleled research capacity includes many of
the brightest minds in ocean and earth science, a fleet of state-of-the-art
research ships, and many one-of-a-kind facilities.
Last summer, scientists from Scripps’s Center for Marine Biodiversity
and Conservation led an international expedition to the northern Line
Islands to study human impact on tropical coral reefs from Christmas
Island to Kingman Reef. Several important discoveries from that expedition
will be announced later this year. In 2008, they will go to the remote
southern Line Islands to determine the minimum size needed for healthy
coral reef reserves.
To learn more, visit scripps.ucsd.edu
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