The Southeast Atlantic Coastal Ocean Observing System (SEA-COOS) is an information system that collects, manages, and disseminates observations and information products of the coastal ocean off of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. It is an effort to develop an umbrella organization to coordinate observing system related activities in the four states. A consortium of 11 institutions from the four states are initiating the program with funding from the Office of Naval Research that began in September 2002 in collaboration with a number of governmental agencies (see partner links).

     SEA-COOS is envisioned to be one of the regional systems ringing the U.S. to form the coastal component of the Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS). One of the challenges faced in developing IOOS is how to move forward from the planning stage. SEA-COOS is an initiative to start building a regional system for the Southeast and is based, in part, on the results of a planning workshop held in Miami, 27 – 29 June 2001 (see background material). It will enhance and expand existing observing systems, test and develop needed sensor support infrastructure such as data transmission and power systems, develop data management capabilities such as Web-based regional DODS servers and a gateway for data and metadata to national repositories, and develop data-assimilative model products. Because these components are required by all coastal observing networks, advances made within this project will benefit the development of the national system.

     WHY? Better and more timely information on the state of the coastal ocean is needed to support better decision-making and to promote better quality of life in the coastal zone. Over the last decade there has been an international effort to define how this should happen, called the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS). It has identified a number of societal ‘themes’ that require improved information:

Marine operations (e.g. shipping, offshore operations like drilling and mining)

Natural hazard mitigation (e.g. storm forecasting, surge prediction, tsunami warning)

Climate change and its effects (e.g. interannual variability in water temperature, salinity, nutrients, storminess, plankton species and abundance, fish species and abundance)

National security (e.g. toxin trajectories, detection of covert operations)

Public health (e.g. unsafe biological activity, rip currents, harmful algal blooms)

Assessing ecosystem health (e.g. changes in food web structure)

Sustained use of marine resources (e.g. fish stock assessments)