Upwelling

1. Upwelling A fisheries manager is interested in determining the onset of upwelling for their regional area. The onset of upwelling has been determined to be an important factor in the recruitment of a certain species of rockfish. The onset and scale of upwelling is also going to be used design and organize in a timely fashion a series of research cruises to assess the distribution of the adult population of this species. The user requires in near real-time a series of regionalsea surface temperature and chlorophyll maps, as well as wind maps. The winds are used in a high-resolution calculation of a localized upwelling index of Ekman transport. The SST and chlorophyll images are used to determine the scale and position of cool upwelling fronts associated with high biological activity. Reviewers (PoDAG) • Mike Steele • Janet Hardy

2. Upwelling Beginning Directions • seek pre-made images/maps of SST, Chl, Winds • google “near real time sea surface temperature” • Top sites (two universities) Rutgers and Johns Hopkins APL • Both fulfill SST NRT need, bonus at Rutgers also Chl, and ocean currents (CODAR) • 8th link PO.DAAC NEREIDS (image distribution server) • Faced decisions with no helpful hints • NOAA 17 or NOAA 16 • Choose 1-day and last week temporal reference • Tried many options all results = ‘no data available’ • Investigated one other link, NOAA, CoralReefWatch, resolution and NRT requirement not met. • google “near real time chlorophyll”, review period is 50% over • Finds a NOAA CoastWatch site that offers ALL (SST, Chl, Winds) • Secondary exploration is NOT user friendly (abort lack of time) • Other links don’t look favorable

3. Upwelling google “near real time ocean surface winds” • No PO.DAAC in the top 10 • First seven are NOT fruitful, including one from NOAA • 8th link is in the Netherlands @ KNMI • Quickly able to pick a U.S. coast region, get ASCAT wind vectors, model winds, and IR image. • Noteworthy - ASCAT documentation is readily available Knowing the scenario purpose - goes directly to PO.DAAC homepage, 30 minutes remain • SST and Wind acronyms, too confusing, use “All ….. “, links • “All temperature products” list is overwhelming. • Browser search on “real” helps some, stumbles onto a “User Guide” dead link. • side track into image ftp directories - not current • Find the POET interface - very nice progress made here. • Go to “All Products” for surface winds • Same first impression as for SST • End - a little more than 2 hours

4. Upwelling PoDAG Team Summary PODAAC seems to have some nice graphics, but NOAA and other places also have good stuff. • SST: The Rutgers web page only covers the USA NE and SE coasts, but it’s very good. PO.DAAC’s POET interface was also nice. • Chl: Rutgers page was good; nothing else came close. • Ocean surface winds: The KNMI site was very nice. PODAAC might have NRT winds in POET, but nothing was flagged as NRT and I ran out of time to look through each data set. Steve’s take away comments • Must know how PO.DAAC service domains appear in Google DB’s • Should some webpage finessing be done? • Learn from other providers, don’t duplicate service, but distinguish DAAC service. • PO.DAAC site specific search could help • Data selection interfaces need to be smart • Only allow selection of data that exists • Put yourself in the users chair, don’t assume acronyms are sufficient guidance, unless properly introduced. • Good idea, validate all web page links