A small error in the APRN radio piece

I was not involved in the 2004 field experiment, so it is NOT the NASA JPL who failed to predict the cyclonic circulation in the Sound. Hopefully we will do better this time around. Let's find out early next week.

APRN Radio Broadcast

Just in case you didn't read 'marz' comments on the previous entry or didn't hear it on the radio, here is a link to the APRN radio piece:

http://media.aprn.org/2009/ann-20090717-05.mp3

Thanks, marz,
Rachel

HF Radar Surface Current Maps

Maps of the surface currents in the Sound collected by HF Radar are now updating hourly in real-time. You can view them on the AOOS data site.

Hello PWS team, this is Darcy Dugan in Anchorage, reporting on a successful press conference yesterday at the AOOS headquarters. Scott gave a great presentation and overview of the project in front of an audience that included Channel 11, the Alaska Public Radio Network, Congressman Don Young's staff, the MMS, Chugach National Forest, Petroluem News, and others. We even got to see a drifter. Great job Scott!

It was also the innagural voyage of Pete Puffin (pictured at left) who will be accompanying researchers on many adventures in the next few weeks. Keep an eye out for Pete. I hear he goes with the current. (Where will he emerge next?)

I look forward to seeing you all in Valdez soon. If you need any assistance from Anchorage, please call. I started at the Alaska Ocean Observing System several weeks ago as the new program manager, and am excited to meet everyone.

Keep those blog posts coming!

Hi everyone, this is Leslie, your friendly public blogger. Thanks for the great material so far and keep those entries coming! Also, I may sometimes post humorous photos and video from the Experiment here that is meant just for the gang-- and not necessarily for the public. So send me your ridiculous material at leslie.abramson@noaa.gov

Leslie

Daily Summary - ROMS Group

The Prince William Sound region is dominated by the relatively weak SW winds, which are not forecast to change substantially in the next 48 hours. At the ocean surface, a moderate-strength cyclonic eddy is present in the center of the Sound which is forecast to persist through the next 48 hours. Surface drifter trajectories predicted using an ensemble of ocean model simulations from a release point near the center of the cyclonic eddy show rather short and chaotic movements over the next 48 hours with an uncertainty in ending location of 2-3 km. For the next two days, the tidal range will around 8 feet. High water at Valdez will be around 4 feet at 19 AKDT and low water around -4 feet at 2 AKDT. The 4km WRF forecast was delayed by about 12 hours, otherwise there were no significant operational issues.

You can see this from our front web page: http://ourocean.jpl.nasa.gov/PWS/

click July 15, you can get the 5-page detailed daily summary in a pdf file.

As we are getting more real-time data, we plan to plot their locations on this front page as well.
The drifter locations will be in a separate page, because of the large number.

Our plan is to repeat this every day, so that we can improve our presentation and daily summary as we start our FE next week.  Any ideas, comments and suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Regards.  -Yi 

ROMS NPZ prediction live

In collaboration with Prof. Fei Chai at University of Maine, we have successfully coupled ROMS circulation/tides with a NPZ model, known as CoSINE (Carbon, Si(OH)4, Nitrogen Ecosystem) ecosystem model. The CoSINE model includes silicate, nitrate and ammonium, two phytoplankton groups, two zooplankton grazers, two detrital pools, TCO2 and recently oxygen has been added to constrain remineralization processes in the model. The CoSINE model has been applied to North Pacific, the equatorial Pacific, and the California coastal upwelling system. Below the euphotic zone, sinking particulate organic matter is converted to inorganic nutrients by a regeneration process, in which organic matter decays to ammonium and then is nitrified to NO3. Incorporating oxygen into the ecosystem model adds extra constraints on the treatment of regeneration processes in the model, and there are many dissolved oxygen measurements for the Prince William Sound. Silicate regeneration is modeled through a similar approach but with a deeper regeneration depth profile, which reflects the tendency of biogenic silica to have higher preservation efficiency compared to other particulate organic matter.

You can access the most updated CoSINE/NPZ model prediction at http://ourocean.jpl.nasa.gov/PWSBIO/. If you have any questions or need to see more images and access the data, please contact Dr. Yi Chao and/or Prof. Fei Chai (fchai@maine.edu). Dr. Rob Campbell from the PWS science center will collect biological samples during the field experiment with a goal to assess the biological model performance and prediction skill.