Hobart

Seminar Abstract

Friday 26 November 2010, 11.30am (Tas time)
CSIRO Auditorium, Hobart

Tim Lynch
Australian Mooring Network Facility Leader
CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research
Hobart

Overview of CSIRO oceanographic moorings*

Deployment of CSIRO oceanographic moorings has undergone considerable growth in recent years. Moorings are deployed by the input side of CMAR, through the Scientific Equipment and Technology (SE&T) group. The Ocean Sensor Deployment (OSD) team is primarily responsible within SE&T for the design, manufacture, storage and servicing of moorings and oceanographic instruments. The workload of OSD, as a function of moorings deployed and serviced, was modelled to triple over the three years from 2009 to 2013. By 2013 a total of 15 arrays, comprising approximately 58 moorings are planned to be deployed. After 18 months of this ambitious moorings program, growth is on track to achieve the modelled milestones. Deployment sites are spread North, into the Indonesian through flow in the tropics; South, into the Mertz polyna in Antarctica; West, offshore from Two Rocks near Perth and; East near North Stradbroke Island. Mooring types range in size from the 4 meter high top float of the Southern Ocean Flux (SOF) mooring, which needs to be deployed from a Bluewater research vessel, to small lander style moorings, installed from the CMAR Explorer shark-cat and recovered by SCUBA divers. Growth is mostly being driven by funding from the Australian Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS), which has also changed the way that OSD operates. With the advent of long-term dedicated funding for oceanographic observing, the majority of the moorings are now developed as “hot swapped” systems to continually collected time-series data, as opposed to one off arrays for process studies. As the system grows this has had a cumulative impact on the resources required for servicing the mooring arrays. Due to the growth in mooring requirements, OSD has also expanded and is now composed of three teams: Deepwater, Coastal and Western Australia. Building on the foundation Deepwater team in Hobart (Tas) a second, Coastal mooring shop has been opened and team members and facilities are now also located in Floreat (WA) and Cleveland (Qld).

*Tim Lynch, Dan McLaughlin, Dave Hughes, Ian Darby, Phil de Boer and Andreas Marouchos

Seminar recording

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Location:
CSIRO = Marine Laboratories Auditorium, Castray Esplanade, Hobart

For further information, or to schedule a seminar, contact:
Andrew Meijers, (Oceanographic seminars) CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research (03) 6232 5335
Natalie Kelly, (Biology/Modelling seminars) CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research 0438 452 483
Jillian Enraght-Moony, (seminar administrator) CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research (03) 6232 5320
Communications Manager, Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems CRC (03) 6226 7888
Tracey Cochrane, Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS), University of Tasmania (03) 6226 2937

Last updated 10/12/10