A compact coastal ocean observing system

The authors describe a compact, easily deployed, moored system for oceanographic and meteorological observations in the coastal ocean. The system consists of a surface and subsurface mooring pair deployed adjacent to one another. Compared to a single catenary surface mooring, this arrangement allows the entire water column to be instrumented. All of the instruments in the system log high resolution time series data. Additionally, the mooring line instruments periodically report averaged data to the buoys via inductive modems. On the subsurface mooring, this averaged data is sent to the surface buoy using an acoustic modem. Inductively coupled mooring line instrumentation includes conductivity, temperature, and pressure sensors, acoustic current meters, and optical backscattering and absorption sensors. In addition to mooring line instruments, the surface buoy collects averaged data from meteorological sensors, including wind speed and direction, barometric pressure, relative humidity, air temperature, precipitation, longwave and shortwave radiation, sea surface temperature and conductivity, and wave height and period. Data from both mooring lines and from the surface meteorological sensors is telemetered to shore via line-of-sight radio and satellite. The entire system, including buoys, moorings, instruments, launch and recovery gear, telemetry receive, and data processing facilities can be packed into a single 20 foot shipping container.