A Gulf Coast Monitoring and Hazards Decision Support Tool -Enhancements Using NASA Earth Science Products, Data and Models

Project Summary
PI: Eurico D'Sa,Dept of Oceanography and Coastal sciences, LSU
Co-PIs:Nan Walker, Greg Stone, DeWitt Braud: Dept. of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences, LSU; Dong-Sahn Ko, Naval Research Laboratory, Stennis Space Center, MS.
The northern Gulf of Mexico coastal region comprising of coastal Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas are low-lying and often prone to flooding and land-loss. This deltaic region influenced by the Mississippi River system has also been impacted by eutrophication and natural disasters such as hurricanes. The operation of a near shore platform based WAVCIS (Wave-Current-Information System) near real-time oceanographic monitoring system along the Louisiana coast by the Coastal Studies Institute at Louisiana State University (LSU) has proven to be of importance for decision making by the Federal and state agencies. There is need to extend the decision making to other parts of the northern Gulf region influenced by the Mississippi River (e.g., Louisiana, Mississippi and parts of Texas coast) and enhance its information content to include monitoring near-shore water quality (e.g., salinity, temperature, ocean color). The GCIS project enhances the coastal decision making with NASA satellite products (winds from Seawinds/QuikSCAT, sea surface height from JASON, sea surface tenperature and ocean color from MODIS and SeaWiFS) and the outputs (sea level, currents, temperature and salinity) of a three-dimensional high resolution (2 km) NCOM coastal circulation model.

Geospatial Synthesis of chromophoric Dissolved Organic Matter Distribution in the Gulf of Mexico for Water Clarity Decision Making

Project Summary
PI: Christopher Osburn, Dept. Marine, Earth, and Atmosphere Sciences, NC State University;
Co-PIs: Eurico D'Sa, Louisiana State University; Thomas Bianchi, Texas A&M University; Robert Chen, University of Massachussetts-Boston; Paula Coble, University of South Florida.
The goal of the project is to have a functional database of CDOM information to address two objectives. One objective is to provide coastal oceanographers with a clearinghouse for CDOM data that can be accessed and to which future cruise-related data acquisitions can be added. The second objective is to provide a resource for decision makers who require water clarity data on spatial and time scales for which satellite oceancolor imagery may be used. The second objective is to be met through validation/enhancement of the D'Sa CDOM absorption algorithm using the proposed database.The Validated algorithm will be used to generate CDOM ocean color product and posted on the GCIS website, which will link to the CDOM database hosted by BCO-DMO.

GCIS(CDOM)              BCO-DMO(CDOM)
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