technology – Office of Coast Survey

August 20, 2021March 23, 2022

Model Upgrade: Global Extratropical Surge and Tide Operational Forecast System Upgraded to Version Two

Screen captures of two new implementations of version two; federal levees along the Mississippi and flood plain inclusion for Puerto Rico.

In late July 2021, the Global Extratropical Surge and Tide Operational Forecast System (Global ESTOFS) upgrade to version two was implemented into operations on the National Weather Service’s (NWS) Weather and Climate Operational Supercomputing System (WCOSS). The modeling system provides forecast guidance for combined water levels caused by storm surge and tides globally, and is to our knowledge the highest resolution global operational storm surge modeling system available today. The forecast guidance from the model is used by forecasters at NWS Weather Forecast Offices (WFO) and the Ocean Prediction Center to generate their storm surge and flood forecasts during storms, including Nor’easters along the U.S. East Coast.

July 16, 2021March 23, 2022

Learning the ropes aboard a NOAA hydrographic survey vessel

By Natalie Cook

University of New Hampshire’s Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping and NOAA are giving undergraduate students the opportunity to participate in seafloor mapping and associated exercises aboard a survey vessel this summer. Natalie Cook, a junior in the Ocean Engineering program, is spending eight weeks aboard NOAA Ship Thomas Jefferson, a 208-foot hydrographic survey vessel, experiencing all aspects of hydrography. Natalie is standing survey watch, processing data, working on survey launches, and serving as an active member of the hydrographic survey team.

June 30, 2021March 23, 2022

Collecting aerial images on the Chesapeake’s Western Shore

U.S. Naval Academy bridge crossing the Severn River

By Tom Loeper

Early in the morning of June 15, John Doroba and Tom Loeper met with Anne Arundel Park Ranger Adam Smith to collect aerial oblique images of several rivers on the Western Shore of the Chesapeake Bay. These images will be used to update existing content in the United States Coast Pilot 3, Atlantic Coast: Sandy Hook, New Jersey to Cape Henry, Virginia. In addition to acquiring images, experience gained during the field exercise will be used to update aerial photography specifications in the Coast Pilot manual.

April 28, 2021March 23, 2022

NOAA’s Precision Marine Navigation data service receives first major update

The Precision Marine Navigation (PMN) program has completed the first update of its prototype navigation data service – the PMN data processing and dissemination system and PMN Data Gateway viewer. The data processing and dissemination system provides surface current forecast guidance from NOAA’s forecast systems, in a prototype marine navigation data format. The viewer allows users to visualize the predictions and discover where they are. Both the system and the viewer were updated to include data from the recently upgraded Northern Gulf of Mexico Operational Forecast System (NGOFS2).

April 21, 2021March 23, 2022

Surveying in the Strait of Juan de Fuca during a global pandemic

By Ensign Jessie Spruill and Hydrographic Senior Survey Technician Simon Swart, NOAA Ship Fairweather

Last Thanksgiving, the crew of NOAA Ship Fairweather were busy surveying in one of the country’s busiest waterways. A global maritime entryway to the Pacific Northwest, the Strait of Juan de Fuca sees over 8,000 transits of deep-draft container ships, cargo and chemical carriers, oil tankers, and barges coming to and from Puget Sound and Canada. In addition to industrial shipping, the Strait of Juan de Fuca also supports over 200,000 transits of recreational vessels and Washington State Ferries. Located north of the Olympic Peninsula, the Strait forms the northwestern most border between the contiguous U.S. and Canada. On the American side, the region is home to eight million people including 50 First Nation communities with centuries old cultural ties to traditional fishing.

October 30, 2020

Make your voice heard: Provide input on ocean mapping, exploration, and characterization efforts in the U.S. EEZ

The National Ocean Mapping, Exploration, and Characterization Council (NOMEC Council), a group of federal agencies established to carry out the National Strategy for Mapping, Exploring, and Characterizing the United States Exclusive Economic Zone, requests your input on developing an Implementation Plan and setting strategic priorities for the effort to map the entire U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) by 2040 and explore and characterize strategic areas.

October 8, 2020

Autonomous vessel operations in the Arctic: Lessons learned from the Summer 2020 Mapping Mission

On May 28, 2020, four uncrewed vessels departed Alameda, California, to begin their transit across the Pacific Ocean, through Unimak Pass, across the Bering Sea, and into the Arctic. These small, uncrewed vessels, powered only by wind and sun, arrived at Point Hope, Alaska, in early August to start an ambitious project acquiring new depth data along the 20 and 50 meter depth contours from Point Hope to the Canadian border. This was the start of a challenging Arctic project that would contend with weather, sea ice, and equipment failures, all while avoiding potential conflicts with indigenous subsistence hunting.

August 12, 2020March 23, 2022

NOAA Coast Survey’s new strategy supports charting mandates and broader seafloor mapping

This week, NOAA’s Office of Coast Survey released the Mapping U.S. Marine and Great Lakes Waters: Office of Coast Survey Contributions to a National Ocean Mapping Strategy. This report is part of NOAA’s ongoing commitment to meet core surveying and nautical charting mandates while supporting broader needs to fill gaps in seafloor mapping and environmental sciences.

June 19, 2020March 25, 2022

Coast Survey Spotlight: Meet Glen Rice

Glen Rice embarking on the "NOAA Ship Nancy Foster" to conduct acceptance testing to confirm proper operation of a newly installed multibeam system.

Ever wonder what it’s like to be a member of the NOAA Coast Survey team? We use the Coast Survey spotlight blog series as a way to periodically share the experiences of Coast Survey employees as they discuss their work, background, and advice.

“Coast Survey serves the public important information that has a real impact both to national commerce and to the individual.”

June 15, 2020March 25, 2022

A message to hydrographers: Your time is now

A global view of mapped and unmapped portions of the world ocean.

By Rear Adm. Shep Smith, Director of NOAA’s Office of Coast Survey

There has never been a better time to be a hydrographer. Our skills, data, and technology are in high demand globally, driven by an increased emphasis both on supporting the blue economy and of protecting the ocean upon which all life on earth depends. The UN declared this decade the “Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development,” and that vision specifically calls out the need to map the world’s oceans. The Nippon Foundation has breathed new energy into the century-long project to create a General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans (GEBCO) with a supporting campaign called Seabed 2030. Hydrography is now invaluable for habitat mapping, for mineral and energy exploration, for offshore wind development, and for ocean modeling supporting everything from predicting local harmful algal blooms to understanding the earth system itself at a global scale.