Eoin Howlett

Tetra Tech | TETRATECH · Department of Information Technology

This report was written to encourage good data management among COMT collaborators. The report describes the life cycle of observation and model data collected and processed during the COMT program that ran from September 1, 2013 to August 31, 2018. This report is accessable from the U.S. IOOS Coastal and Ocean Modeling Testbed website (see https:/...

An ocean modeling program is improving our ability to predict circulation along the U.S. West Coast, dead zones and other coastal ecosystem responses, and storm surges in island environments.

The wide-ranging requirements of computing to support scientific services and research can make the development and maintenance of infrastructure challenging and costly. Numerical simulation and forecasting generally requires a high performance computing environment including high speed, low latency networks supporting parallel execution, whereas t...

When oil is spilled in a marine environment the impact can be catastrophic to a sensitive region damaging natural resources. It is important to respond quickly and efficiently to maximize the response effort and minimize the impact. In order to plan and train for incidents within the Shannon Estuary in Ireland, The Shannon Estuary Anti-Pollution Te...

[1] Strong and strategic collaborations among experts from academia, federal operational centers, and industry have been forged to create a U.S. IOOS Coastal and Ocean Modeling Testbed (COMT). The COMT mission is to accelerate the transition of scientific and technical advances from the coastal and ocean modeling research community to improved oper...

This manual presents a series of tests for QC procedures. The goal is to provide guidance to the U.S. IOOS and the wave community at large on an agreed-upon, documented, and implemented standard process. U.S. IOOS/QARTOD maintains a code repository (www.ioos.noaa.gov/qartod) where operators may find or post examples of code in use. Although certain...

The coastal northeast United States was heavily impacted by hurricanes Irene and Sandy. Track forecasts for both hurricanes were quite accurate days in advance. Intensity forecasts, however, were less accurate, with the intensity of Irene significantly over-predicted, and the rapid acceleration and intensification of Sandy just before landfall unde...

In order to address water quality problems around the Corniche Island area in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, a study was conducted to characterize existing conditions and investigate possible mitigation measures. The overall study includes field experiments to acquire hydrographic, water quality, habitat data, and hydrodynamic...

Coastal waters and lowlands of the U.S. are threatened by climate change, sea-level rise, flooding, oxygen depleted “dead zones”, oil spills and unforeseen disasters. With funding from U.S. Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS®), the Southeast University Research Association (SURA) facilitated strong and strategic collaborations among experts fr...

The Dubai Operational Forecasting System couples a suite of meteorology and ocean models with data management infrastructure and web-based information tools. This infrastructure efficiently generates and disseminates three-day forecasts of winds, wave, and currents. The forecast system implements the latest open-source modelling technology from the...

The U.S. Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS®) partners have begun an effort to extend the use of high frequency (HF) radar for U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) search and rescue operations to all U.S. coastal areas with HF radar coverage. This project builds on the success of an IOOS and USCG-supported regional USCG search and rescue product created by...

The U.S. Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS®) partners have begun an effort to extend the use of high frequency (HF) radar for U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) search and rescue operations to all U.S. coastal areas with HF radar coverage. This project builds on the success of an IOOS and USCG-supported regional USCG search and rescue product created by...

There is remarkable agreement in expectations today for vastly improved ocean data management a decade from now --capabilities that will help to bring significant benefits to ocean research and to society. Advancing data management to such a degree, however, will require cultural and policy changes that are slow to effect. The technological foundat...

A number of rapidly evolving ocean observing initiatives including NOAA's Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) and NSF's Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) are focused on the integration of disparate time-varying geospatial data collected by satellites, in-situ measuring devices, radar, with data generated by numerical models. This paper stud...

Natural disaster mitigation, maritime accident response (e.g. oil spills such as the Prestige in Spain), maritime Search and Rescue (SAR) operations, and protecting the public during Harmful Algal Bloom (HAB) outbreaks all share the common need: decision makers responsible for managing the incident require available reliable information, particular...

Search and Rescue (SAR) planning and response activities are sometimes handicapped by the lack of environmental information. Accurate and comprehensive wind and current are necessary to determine the likely movement of search objects over time. To address this, the U.S. Coast Guard has deployed a new software tool for SAR planning, the Search and R...

COASTMAP, a globally re-locatable marine environmental modeling and monitoring system, has been extensively upgraded, extended, and applied as an initial demonstration of the national backbone of the integrated ocean observing system (IOOS). Following the guidelines from the IOOS Data Management and Communications (DMAC) plan, the system provides e...

The CODAR-based surface current prediction model (Short-Term Predictive System, STPS) previously demonstrated in Block Island Sound was extended to an existing long-range CODAR area in the Middle Atlantic Bight (MAB) and upgraded to incorporate the effects of wind forcing. Signal processing and data reduction refinements were also incorporated in t...

Researchers at the University of RI, Ocean Engineering; Applied Science Associates, Inc (ASA); Drexel University, Civil and Architectural Engineering; the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Ocean Service; and Brown University have partnered in a three year (2000 to 2003), National Ocean Partnership Program (NOPP) spons...

This article is a discussion of four computer-based models designed by the US Army Corp of Engineers and used for dredging and disposal operations and long-term dredge mound evolution. Now Applied Science Associates and the Army Corp have jointly developed customised interfaces for these four models. All four have been in use for ten years as tools...

This paper describes a newly developed horizontal gridding method, the stepwise-continuous-variable-rectangular grid (SCVR). The gridding approach is based on simple rectangular gridding and has some similarity to a standard finite difference nesting structure. Unlike typical nested grids, which allow only a limited level of refinement, one-way pro...

This technical note (TN) details development of a new ARCVlEW-based graphical user interface (GUI) for the Long-Term FATE of dredged material (LTFATE) model, Version 2.0. This new GUI is a product of the Dredging Operations and Environmental Research (DOER) Near Field modeling of Sub Aqueous Dredged Material Placements work unit. This work unit was...

A newly developed hydrodynamics system with a novel grid structure is presented. The gridding approach has some similarity to a standard finite difference nesting structure, but differs in that the gridding tools and the model execution enable several levels of grid size to be constructed and executed at the same time. The model produces current da...

Applied Science Associates and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have developed customized interfaces for a suite of U.S Army Corps of Engineers models used to manage dredging and disposal operations and long-term dredged mound evolution. Each of four models, STFATE, MDFATE, LTFATE and SSFATE have been incorporated into custom ArcView^(R)...

The OSC2 (On Scene Command and Control) system has been developed for the United States Coast Guard (USCG) under the direction of Headquarters, the Research & Development Center, and the National Strike Force. The prototype system is now being used by the Atlantic Strike Team for PREP government-led area exercise use in an evaluation program. The O...

A state-of-the-art, three-dimensional oil spill model (WOSM/OILMAP) was applied to hindcast the transport and fate of the Braer oil spill, which occurred off the southern coast of Shetland Island in January 1993. The model included advection, spreading, evaporation, emulsification, entrainment, oil-shoreline interaction, and subsurface transport. T...

An oil spill response model, configured for operation on a personal computer, was applied to predict the transport and fate of oil from the Mina Al Ahmadi spill in the northern Arabian Gulf. The model predicts the drift, spread, evaporation, dispersion, emulsification, and shoreline interaction of the spilled oil. Wind data necessary as input to th...

First Page of the Article

Oil spill trajectory and fate modeling is used extensively in oil spill response, contingency planning, and as a tool in oil fate and impact assessment. Spill models are now being integrated with tactical response models, impact assessment models, and associated databases to develop oil spill response decision support systems. Based on a decade of...

An innovative oil spill model system for the Prince William Sound region, a model developed for Alyeska Pipeline Service Company is described. The model system includes modules to simulate the surface and subsurface movement of oil, the tactics, operational constraints, and effectiveness of spill response (dispersant, mechanical cleanup, and burnin...

An oil spill response model, configured for operation on a personal computer, was developed for the Canadian Beaufort Sea (in the Mackenzie Bay-Tuktoyaktuk Peninsula area) for a consortium of oil companies operating in the region. The spill model predicts the drift, spread, evaporation, dispersion, emulsification, and shoreline interaction of spill...

The Coastal Management Section (CMS) of Dubai Municipality (DM) has been operating a coastal zone monitoring program since 2002 with initial emphasis on data collection and establishment of an in-house survey capability. The program has evolved to focus on data analysis and generation of products and interfacing with CMS-operated predictive numeric...

Personal computers have been increasingly used to study environmental issues. In recent years, a number of applications have become available for use in modeling, monitoring, and mapping for a wide variety of environmental problems. A widespread increase in the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for modeling, mapping and analysis, means th...

Habitat in open water is not simply a 2-D to 2.5-D surface such as the ocean bottom or the air-water interface. Rather, pelagic habitat is a 3-D volume of water that can change over time, leading us to the term habitat space. Visualization and analysis in 2-D is well supported with GIS tools, but a new tool was needed for visualization and analysis...