Integrated Ocean Observing System

The Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) is an organization of systems that routinely and continuously provides quality controlled data and information on current and future states of the oceans and Great Lakes from the global scale of ocean basins to local scales of coastal ecosystems. It is a multidisciplinary system designed to provide data in forms and at rates required by decision makers to address seven societal goals.

IOOS is developing as a multi-scale system that incorporates two, interdependent components, a global ocean component, called the Global Ocean Observing System, with an emphasis on ocean-basin scale observations and a coastal component that focuses on local to Large Marine Ecosystem (LME) scales. Large Marine Ecosystems (LMEs) in U.S. coastal waters and IOOS Regional Associations.

Many of IOOS' component regional systems are being dismantled for lack of federal funding, including the Gulf of Maine Ocean Observing System GoMOOS . This has resulted in the loss of long term data sets and information used by Coast Guard search and rescue operations.[1]

Regional associations

(shown in the figure below).The coastal component consists of Regional Coastal Ocean Observing Systems (RCOOSs) nested in a National Backbone of coastal observations. From a coastal perspective, the global ocean component is critical for providing data and information on basin scale forcings (e.g., ENSO events), as well as providing the data and information necessary to run coastal models (such as storm surge models).[2]


Alaska Ocean Observing System AOOS
Central California Ocean Observing System CeNCOOS
Great Lakes Observing System GLOS
Gulf of Maine Ocean Observing System GoMOOS
Gulf of Mexico Coastal Ocean Observing System GCOOS
Pacific Islands Ocean Observing System PacIOOS
Mid-Atlantic Coastal Ocean Observing Regional Association MACOORA
Northwest Association of Networked Ocean Observing Systems NANOOS
Southern California Ocean Observing System SCCOOS
Southeast Coastal Ocean Observing Regional Association SECOORA
Caribbean Integrated Ocean Observing System CarICOOS

See also

References

  1. ↑ Colin Woodard, "Uncharted Seas," Down East Magazine, May 2009; unavailable online but summary and background here
  2. ↑ IOOS coastal components

External links

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