October 6, 2005
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Mark Moline
College of Science and Mathematics
(805) 756-2948
mmoline@calpoly.edu
Cal Poly Awarded $3.4 Million Grant to Monitor California
Ocean Currents
Cal Poly has received a $3.4 million grant from UC San Diego's
Scripps Institution of Oceanography and San Francisco State University
to install a high-tech system to monitor California's near-shore
currents.
The ocean currents monitoring system will help combat pollution,
aid in response to natural hazards, and help understand the coastal
ecosystem of California.
A total of $21 million was approved by the state Coastal Conservancy
for the project. The funding will come from two statewide bond measures
approved by voters in 2002 and will not add to California's budget
deficit. Eight institutions, including Cal Poly, shared the funding
and will install the system from the border of Mexico to the Oregon
state line. They expect to have it up and running in two years.
The new system will collect hour-by-hour data, which will be available
live on the Internet. The data will be valuable to a wide range
of Californians, from fishermen to marine researchers to government
agencies tracking pollution spills.
For mariners, ocean currents can be as important to navigation
as air currents in the atmosphere are to aviators. The data will
enable maritime shipping companies to figure out faster routes.
For the U.S. Coast Guard, accurate information on currents will
aid in the investigation and recovery of planes and vessels involved
in accidents and allow for more effective responses to oil spills.
Long-term mapping of the current patterns will assist in the proper
placement of outfalls for new power and sewer plants. The data will
be of interest to scientists tracking toxic algal blooms and analyzing
dispersal patterns of egg and larvae from marine life, including
abalone, crab and sea urchins.
California's program will serve as a model for a coordinated coastal
monitoring network envisioned by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration for each of the country’s coastlines. The monitoring
system will rely primarily on high-frequency radar readings, but
also will blend in data from sub-surface current meters, open ocean
drifters fitted with global positioning system devices, wave buoys
and satellite data.
Scripps is taking the lead for the Southern California campuses,
while San Francisco State University will oversee installation along
the northern half of the state's 1,100-mile coastline. Because Cal
Poly is strategically located in center of the state, it will be
represented in both regions. Additional partners include the University
of Southern California, UC Santa Barbara, the Naval Postgraduate
School in Monterey, UC Davis, which operates the Bodega Marine Laboratory,
and Humboldt State University.
Professor Mark Moline, from the Biological Sciences Department,
will head up the effort for Cal Poly, with operations scheduled
into 2009. For more information, visit the monitoring program’s
Web site at: www.cocmp.org.
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