Expanding the Caribbean Coastal Ocean Observing System into the nearshore region

Abstract

After five years of continued development, the Caribbean Coastal Ocean Observing System (CariCOOS) has reached a major turning point regarding the nature of its ocean observing platforms and numerical modeling efforts. During the design stage of CariCOOS, stakeholder consultations highlighted the need for operational instrumented buoy platforms to provide data on winds, waves, currents and water quality. This led to the deployment of three full data buoys off the coasts of San Juan, Ponce and the United States Virgin Islands (USVI), a directional Datawell Waverider buoy in the Mona Passage, an array of shore based High Frequency Radar antennas for surface current mapping in the Mona Passage, and a network of 13 hurricane-hardened coastal meteorological stations. In addition, a suite of numerical models of winds and waves are currently operational for the region and continuously validated with our observational assets. Although stakeholders have expressed satisfaction with the regional-scale understanding obtained with CariCOOS models and ocean observing assets, recent consultations have highlighted the need for sector focused products to be developed at smaller scales targeting selected ports, highly visited and yet often hazardous tourist beaches, marine protected areas and other locations. Efforts in the current developmental stage are aimed in this direction; our mission consists of a combination of maintaining our suite of buoys, weather stations and numerical models with the development of new observing platforms and models to satisfy the nearshore-specific needs of our stakeholders. Despite being closer to shore, however, observing and predicting the complexity of the wind, wave and current patterns in the nearshore region requires highly specialized sensors and very high resolution numerical models. Stakeholder-driven efforts focused in the nearshore region currently underway at Cari-COOS include the development of a high-resolution jetski-based bathymetric surveying and side scan sonar system, a real-time surfzone currents and beach hazards warning system, and the implementation of a three-dimensional baroclinic circulation model for important ports and nearshore regions. In this paper we describe these and other new initiatives in detail and explain the design and development process.