SCOR Affiliated Group on Acoustic Monitoring of the Global Ocean Meeting
Following the Tokyo Symposium, the SCOR meeting was held on the afternoon of February 10 in the JAMSTEC conference room. During the morning, the hosts arranged for a brief visit to their research vessel Yokosuka and to the prototype testing facility for ROVs. High pressure chambers and other calibration equipment concerning acoustic transmitters and receiver chains designed and built by the JAMSTEC acoustics team were also viewed.
Summary of the General Discussion
Chairman:
A. Forbes
Participants :
A. Forbes J. Colosi C. S. Murty F. Gaillard w. Denner R. Spindel W. Kuperman E. C. Shang P. Worcester B. Dushaw N. Jungyul L. Xiao R. Zhang P. Mikhalevsky D. Menemenlis B. Howe K. Heaney L. Krige I. Nakano Y. Desaubies T. Terre B. Cornuelle U. Send V. Akulichev O. Johannessen M. Lawrence
Status of ongoing ATOC studies in the Pacific Ocean :
Data transmissions from the acoustic sources at Pioneer seamount off California and Kauai, Hawaii are required to be suspended beyond October and December 1999 as environmental marine mammal research permits expire.
So far these studies with low frequency acoustic transmissions have not shown any deleterious impact on the marine mammals or their habitats. No harmful effects have been detected except for some observations that some marine mammals tendr to go dive deeper in the water column when the transmissions are on.
Acoustic data collected at receivers around the North Pacific in real-time have been used for testing the results of numerical GCMs and in assimilation exercises of the data. This was further highlighted by predictions of the recent "El Nino" event.
There is a general scarcity of funds to redeploy the Pacific transmitters for use elsewhere - e.g. in the Indian Ocean or Atlantic Ocean. Funds required are in the range of USD 400K.
