Year-round automated observations of ecological processes in coastal waters

最近，一个为期6年的研究和开发方案“大西洋区域跨学科海洋环境预测”在成功演示了一个综合的、跨学科的沿海观测和建模系统后终止，该系统利用创新的网络资源近乎实时地向用户和研究人员报告数据和预报。这对加拿大来说是第一次，也是世界上第一次。该项目的遗产之一是一个仪器遥测浮标，具有强大的数据管理和呈现系统，最近被部署在新斯科舍省的贝德福德盆地，以补充贝德福德海洋研究所的贝德福德盆地浮游生物监测计划，该计划是一个为期16年的时间序列(每周)，记录大西洋加拿大研究最深入的沿海海湾的浮游生物生态系统状况。改名后的贝德福德盆地海洋监测浮标增加了对贝德福德盆地时间序列的物理、化学和生物变异性连续测量，这是对贝德福德盆地时间序列的一种革命性改进；反过来，贝德福德海洋学研究所提供的每周持续采样提供了宝贵的地面实况数据和额外的测量，为海洋变异性的连续但有时是间接的测量增添了巨大价值。时间序列站现在是研究沿海生态系统以及如何有效监测这些生态系统的独特资源。新整合的监测项目使用浮标，由于结冰，无法在初春新斯科舍省沿海水域最活跃的时候部署浮标。此外，它缺乏硝酸盐和一些水质参数的自动测量，而这些参数通常是在沿海水域测量的。我们需要设备来提供这些缺失的能力，从而建立一个最先进的海岸观测系统，以支持丰富和持续的合作研究计划。

Recently, a 6-year program of research and development, "Interdisciplinary Marine Environmental Prediction In The Atlantic Region", terminated after successfully demonstrating an integrated, interdisciplinary coastal observation and modeling system that reported data and forecasts to users and researchers in near-real time with innovative web-based resources. This was a first for Canada, and one of the first in the world. One of the project's legacies, an instrumented telemetered buoy with a potent system for data management and presentation, was recently deployed in Bedford Basin, Nova Scotia to complement the Bedford Institute of Oceanography's Bedford Basin Plankton Monitoring Program, a 16-year time series (weekly) of the state of the plankton ecosystem in Atlantic Canada's best studied coastal embayment. The addition of continuous measurements of physical, chemical and biological variability from the renamed Bedford Basin Ocean Monitoring Buoy represents a transformational improvement to the Bedford Basin time series; in turn, continued weekly sampling provided by the Bedford Institute of Oceanography provides valuable ground-truth data and additional measurements that add tremendous value to the continuous, but sometimes indirect, measures of ocean variability. The time-series station is now a unique resource for research on coastal ecosystems and how they can be effectively monitored. The newly integrated monitoring program uses a buoy that, because of icing, cannot be deployed during the early spring, when the coastal waters of Nova Scotia are most dynamic. Also, it lacks automated measurements of nitrate and some water quality parameters that are commonly measured in coastal waters. We request equipment to provide these missing capabilities, thereby establishing a state-of-the-art coastal observation system in support of a rich and continuing program of collaborative research.