ALOHA Cabled Observatory: Operations and Maintenance

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The ALOHA Cabled Observatory (ACO) was deployed in June 2011 to support innovative scientific research at Station ALOHA, 100 km north of Oahu. For the past 23 years on a monthly schedule, the Hawai'i Ocean Time-series (HOT) project has been collecting ship-based oceanographic data; for the last 7 years, the WHOTS mooring has provided comprehensive meteorological and upper ocean data. These data together with those from associated process studies form a unique, multivariate long-term data set of the ocean state centered at one location. The PI's request funding to continued ACO operations and maintenance for the scientific community.Broader Impacts: A successful full-ocean-depth cabled observatory available to the research community will have broad impacts on both ocean science and in communicating the importance of our work to students and the interested public. The PIs do a great job explaining how they will entrain the ocean science community, including both hosting instruments on the cabled observatory and supporting instruments that will yield data useful to the science community. Involving engineering students from UH is excellent and outreach to the local science museum will allow the many visitors to Hawaii to understand and appreciate the deep-sea beneath the blue surface. The ALOHA site also has a unique advantage being associated with the HOT time-series station. Also the proposed collaboration with the Bishop Museum seems well founded and beneficial to middle school learning.