Posts Tagged ‘MAB’
PI-Added Sensors / Equipment Requests for Pioneer Array MAB Accepted After Array is Operational
We are very excited about deploying the Pioneer Array in its new location in the southern Mid-Atlantic Bight (MAB), including new designs and new sensors. The MAB location and design require new permitting, new engineering, and inclusion of new sensors as part of the core Array measurements. We are optimistic that we are on track to deploy the new Array in Spring 2024 as planned.
Because of this aggressive timeline for deployment in the new location, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has directed the OOI Facility to put acceptance and evaluation of Principal Investigator requests for new sensors/equipment on hold until the new Array has been deployed and fully operational for one month. This will allow the OOI to focus on delivery of the core OOI measurements during this critical period, including initial understanding of performance. The NSF also has directed the OOI to return assessments as soon as practicable after the hiatus has been lifted, ideally by Summer 2024.
Specific dates will be posted as they become known. Regular updates on progress at the Pioneer Array MAB will be posted here.
Read MoreWatch Pioneer Relocation Update
Dr. Albert Plueddemann, senior scientist with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and principal investigator for the Coastal and Global Scale Nodes of the Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI), was the featured speaker at the April 2023 “Science on the Sound” Lecture Series at the Coastal Studies Institute on the ECU Outer Banks Campus. Dr. Plueddemann presented information on an exciting new research ocean observing array headed to the offshore waters of the Outer Banks. Relocation of the Ocean Observatories Initiative Pioneer Array happened on April 20. For those who couldn’t attend in person, the presentation can be watched here.
The OOI Pioneer Array was envisioned as a re-locatable coastal array to investigate physical and biochemical exchange processes on the continental shelf and upper slope.The array infrastructure includes moorings, gliders, and AUVs. The Array was previously sited on the New England Shelf (NES), centered at the shelfbreak south of Martha’s Vineyard, MA.
The new MAB site represents a different environment than the New England Shelf location and offers opportunities to collect data on a variety of cross-disciplinary science topics, including cross-shelf exchange and Gulf Stream influences, land-sea interactions associated with large estuarine systems, a highly productive ecosystem with major fisheries, processes driving biogeochemical cycling and transport, and fresh-water outflows during extreme rain events.
Watch the presentation here.
Coastal Review Reports on Pioneer’s Relocation
The Coastal Pioneer Array will have a new home in the Southern Mid-Atlantic Bight in the spring of 2024. Just like any move, there are lots of preparations necessary. In this case, test deployments are now taking place to ensure the Array can be in tune with its new environment.
Reporter Jennifer Allen provides insight into the ongoing preparations for the move and plans forward in an article in Coastal Review.
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