RESEARCH ACCOMPLISHMENTS
AND FUTURE DIRECTION

An overview of notable accomplishments over the past several years is presented here. A bibliography of CIMAS publications during the period 1996-2001 is shown here.

The research program in CIMAS has grown markedly, almost doubling over the past five years. In this section we present a brief overview of some activities that illustrate the way in which CIMAS plays an important role because of its unique structure which enables it to bring together the research expertise of scientists in universities with those in government laboratories at the Federal and State level and those in the private sector. The examples sited below show how these efforts can be effectively focused on a wide range of environmental issues.

Regional Cooperative Research and the South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Program

Much of the recent growth in CIMAS has been due to the great increase in research activities associated with the South Florida Ecosystem Restoration (SFER), http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/flbay/. The purpose of SFER is to rectify the ecological damage done to South Florida and the Everglades because of water diversion projects carried out to mitigate flood damage from hurricane rains. Canals and levees have sharply reduced the flow of water into the natural historical Everglades and associated coastal areas to the south and they severely altered the seasonality of the flows and the locations where the water was discharged. The Everglades now receives too little water in the dry season and too much in the rainy season. Water diversions may also have changed salinity patterns in some coastal waters, although this issue is still unresolved. These changes have had a great impact on the coastal ecosystems in some areas.

As a result of these changes the ecological health of the Everglades, a vast ecosystem that is unique in the United States, has seriously deteriorated. The Everglades today is only about half the size it was a century ago, and what remains has been divided into compartments separated by levees. Among other impacts, the number of wading birds breeding in the Everglades has declined over 90%. As many as 68 plant and animal species in the Everglades are facing extinction.

The restoration plan calls for capturing and retaining in the Everglades most of the 1.7 billion gallons of water that are diverted annually to the Straits of Florida or to the Gulf of Mexico. Water would be released to the Everglades in an annual cycle that will mimic the natural flow. The objective of the plan is to resuscitate the 12 million acres of saw grass and swamp that cut across South Florida and to revitalize its dying plants and animals.

Much of the future research in CIMAS will focus on assessing the impact of interventions carried out under the restoration. No one can accurately estimate the ecological impact of the "replumbing" of South Florida. The altered system will dramatically change the amount and timing of freshwater (surface and groundwater) inputs to coastal ecosystems (e.g., Florida Bay, the Florida Keys, Biscayne Bay) from what they have been the last 50 years. In some cases this will restore historical estuarine salinities, and in other cases this will shift them further from their historical conditions. It is generally accepted that there is no "perfect" plan. Thus the consequences of the restoration will have to be followed closely and adjustments will have to be made over the 30 year life of the program.

The restoration plan will provide $7.8 billion over the next 30 years. It is the largest environmental-restoration project in this Nation's history and it will require a solid scientific foundation for assessing the consequences as the program progresses. Because the Everglades and associated ecosystems lie in close proximity to major urban areas on both coasts of Florida the restoration will inevitably give rise to situations that call for policy and management decisions and multiple-use strategies. Many of these issues are addressed in CIMAS research programs.

Back to top...

International Cooperation
and the Intra-Americas Sea Initiative

The Intra-Americas Sea (IAS) encompasses the Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, Straits of Florida, and the adjacent western North Atlantic. A large number of countries border on this region and they rely on these waters as a source of food and recreation and also as a source of tourism revenues. The IAS is important to the US in a number of ways. It is the source region for the ocean circulation system that affects the Gulf of Mexico, the Florida Keys, the Florida coast, and via the Gulf Stream, much of the US East Coast. Currents from the IAS carry larvae which can subsequently recruit to downstream environments in the US coastal zone. These currents also carry nutrients (both natural and anthropogenic) and a broad range of pollutants over great distances throughout the region. The IAS is also the source region of much of the weather that impacts on the southern US. Tropical storms and hurricanes are bred or pass through this region on their way to Central and North America. During the summer months hot, humid air masses routinely emerge from the IAS region, cross the Gulf coast, and penetrate into the interior of the United States, often leading to dramatic (and destructive) weather situations which affect a large area of the central and eastern US.

Scientists from RSMAS, CIMAS, and the local NOAA laboratories have played a lead role in developing an activity - the Intra-Americas Sea Initiative (IASI) - whose objective is to advance our scientific understanding of complex environmental problems in the IAS. IASI has four major research thrusts:

  • Physical interactions of air, sea and land in the IAS;
  • Larval recruitment pathways, adult productivity, biological-physical linkages and their influences on IAS fisheries;
  • Interconnections and sustainability of coastal environments and resources; and,
  • A regional global ocean observing system for the IAS.

IASI addresses these issues through a collaborative effort involving US scientists with their counterparts in Caribbean, Central and South American countries. This initiative includes a training component to assist IAS countries in the development of a sustainable scientific infrastructure for environmental science; a number of training programs are already under way. Although IASI does not emphasize social research, it will provide scientific results in formats optimized to serve as input to economic and other social sciences models. More information about IASI can be found here.

Because of the broad scope of the IASI activities, the economic importance of the region to the US, and the international character of the program, we anticipate that NOAA will play an important role in the IASI. The National Weather Service (NWS) is already involved through its arrangements with individual countries for weather services; the National Ocean Service (NOS) is involved with a tide gauge program, coastal zone management training, and the design of marine sanctuaries; NMFS is involved in supporting IAS fisheries; the National Environmental Satellite Data Information Service (NESDIS) provides CoastWatch coverage to the IAS and engages in data exchange for the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC). Other agencies will be significant participants in the program. The education and training aspects of the IASI program will require the participation of RSMAS and other Universities. Given the breadth of the program and the broad participation, it is appropriate that CIMAS will continue to play a central role in this activity.

Back to top...

Ocean and Atmosphere Monitoring
on the Cruise Ship Explorer of the Seas:

The Rosenstiel School and Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines (RCCL), with support from NOAA and NSF, have embarked on an unprecedented collaboration to study the ocean and atmosphere during routine cruises of the RCCL ship Explorer of the Seas.

Explorer is a new state-of-the-art cruise ship (142,000 tons, 1020 feet LOA, 157.5 ft beam; 3114 passengers; cruising speed, 23.7 kts) which started operations out of Miami in October 2000. Each week the Explorer cruises across the Gulf Stream to ports in the Caribbean and the Bahamas. RCCL provides free-of-charge two science laboratories (installed at RCCL's expense) to RSMAS and AOML, an atmospheric sciences laboratory and an oceanographic laboratory. Laboratory instrumentation was obtained with funds provided by RCCL, NOAA, and NSF.

RCCL also provides at no charge two passenger cabins for RSMAS and AOML scientists and technicians.

The ship carries a wide range of instrumentation that allows continuous unattended measurements of a wide range of ocean and atmospheric properties. Data is returned via various communication links to data centers at RSMAS, National Weather Service, NOAA's National Data Buoy Center at Stennis Space Center, and the GLOBE (Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment) program.

All data will be made available to the general scientific community. Water measurements include temperature, salinity, pH, dissolved oxygen; these will be expanded to include chlorophyll and turbidity. Sensor packages are being developed for harmful algal blooms, toxic metals, pCO2 and nutrients. Routine meteorological measurements are also made. Instrumentation includes dual-frequency acoustic doppler current profilers, a Radian wind profiler, a Vaisala ceilometer, solar radiation monitoring instrumentation, and a Marine-Atmospheric Emitted Radiation Interferometer. Air chemistry measurements include aerosol composition, aerosol light scatter and absorption; CO, CO2 and SO2 are also measured. A real-time display of the location of the ship on its cruise track and some of the data being recorded is found here.

The Explorer of the Seas will obtain routine synoptic data in an important ocean region. The waters of the Gulf Stream, the Bahamas and the northeastern Caribbean play a major role in ocean heat transport and ocean chemistry. The atmosphere over this region is important from the standpoint of understanding the transition from the continents to the open ocean and the interaction between the air masses over these regions including the transport of pollutants to the ocean. In addition to the research program, an educational component will provide a new means of outreach and the scientists aboard will routinely interact with passengers and give lectures on relevant topics.

The arrangement with the University, NOAA, and RCCL can serve as a model for establishing similar collaborative agreements with other cruise lines. It will enable us to develop and test new measurement systems (in some cases in partnership with instrument companies) designed for autonomous operation aboard ships-of-opportunity. In this way over the longer term it may be possible to instrument large numbers of cruise ships which could provide important synoptic data in our nation's coastal ocean waters and other regions of interest. NOAA clearly has a major interest in such measurements. CIMAS and other Joint Institutes could play an important role in bringing together the various university, commercial, and government interests and forging links to cruise lines and other ship operators.

/body>