By UNH News Service: A powerful new tool to measure the coastal Gulf of Maine environment off New Hampshire’s shores is now live, thanks to researchers at the University of New Hampshire. This summer, UNH and partners deployed a cabled ocean observing system near the Isles of Shoals— the first of its kind on the East Coast. The platform of sophisticated acoustic and oceanographic sensors will transmit data in real time for the first time in this region.
Located 10 miles offshore and three miles east of Appledore Island, the system’s sensors will detect human and marine mammal activity, wind and precipitation, sea ice dynamics, and oceanographic features, with implications for national security, energy development, and commercial fisheries. In addition, it will shed light on the connections between coastal measurements and the overall Gulf of Maine environment, complementing and extending existing oceanographic infrastructure.
“Measurements made with this valuable ocean asset will serve as a baseline for analyses of environmental conditions in this busy, productive area of the Gulf of Maine,” said project lead Jennifer Miksis-Olds, director of UNH’s Center for Acoustics Research and Education and interim vice president for research and innovation. “As the first of its kind on the East Coast, this will expand our understanding of the ocean in real time.”
Funded with a $6.2 million grant from the Office of Naval Research, the solar-powered system is composed of three elements: an underwater platform that hosts ten sensors (hydrophones, 200 kHz echosounder, video, temperature, salinity, pH, dissolved oxygen, current, and chlorophyll sensors, and a fish tag receiver that will share detections with the Ocean Tracking Network), solar panel and data acquisition systems on Appledore Island, and a subsea cable that connects the two.
The effort highlights powerful partnerships between UNH and Newington, N.H.-based SubCom, which donated and laid the cable; JASCO Applied Sciences, which designed the Underwater Listening System (ULS) platform and is a longstanding industrial partner of UNH’s Center for Acoustic Research and Education; and Shoals Marine Laboratory, a field station and undergraduate marine science facility jointly operated by UNH and Cornell University on Appledore Island.
“The ULS has been an exceptional collaboration with Dr. Miksis-Olds and the teams at UNH, SubCom, and Ocean Specialists,” said Bruce Martin director of applied sciences at JASCO. “By delivering a continuous stream of acoustic, biological, and oceanographic data, the system will give students, researchers, and the public a powerful new window into how this corner of the Gulf of Maine changes across seasons and years. The ULS is powered entirely by renewable energy, allowing us to expand our understanding of the marine environment without impacting Shoals Island—a vital breeding and nesting habitat for shorebirds and an important stopover for migratory songbirds.”
The system will extend the listening power of the Acoustic and Environmental Observation Network in the NW Atlantic (AEON), also led by Miksis-Olds. AEON acoustically covers the offshore waters of the Gulf of Maine with five landers that span from Cape Cod to the Bay of Fundy and east into Georges Bank, approximately 62 miles offshore; this new system will fill the coastal gap, providing full regional coverage and connectivity of the two systems.
Data generated by the coastal ocean observing system will be accessible and open to all via a dedicated website.
