Oceanic Remote Chemical Analyzer



Project Goals

The original goal of the ORCA project was to develop a robust remote chemical and biological monitoring system that could:

  1. incorporate a large variety of sensors to allow monitoring of key water and atmospheric parameters, such as:
    1. temperature, salinity, solar radiation, wind speed and direction
    2. nutrient, oxygen, and chlorophyll concentraitons, turbidity
    3. gas exchange parameters
    4. and currents
  2. monitor the spectrum of time-scales, including hourly (tidal flucuations), daily (solar cycles), weekly and monthly (plankton growth and blooms), and annual (seasons and inter-annual cycles, i.e. El Nino)
  3. telemeter data back in near-real time

Now that the system has been developed, the project has been able to focus on the analysis of the high frequency database the ORCA system has collected. While we will continue to develop the flexibility, expandability, and robustness of the system, our current goals are to:

  1. use the high frequency data set to describe natural variability and characterize and help evaluate potential human influences
  2. validate current physical and biological models for the Puget Sound
  3. develop ORCA as a learning tool
    1. allowing access to the high-resolution time series to undergraduate and graduate students who design and execute experiments
    2. use the time-series as a real world example to teach oceanographic concepts to area middle and high school science classes