Upwelling and Air/Ocean Indices Calculated Over the Web for West Coast Salmon Assessments
Current Status of Accomplishment or Milestone: Completed. Data can be accessed by going to the URL: http://www.pfeg.noaa.gov and clicking on "PFEL Live Access Server"
Background: Environmental variability has been identified as a key feature in salmon population dynamics, including the effects of upwelling and other wind related measures. PFEL's long standing upwelling and air/ocean indices have been used in a variety of studies, but were only routinely available at 15 points along the west coast of North America.
Purpose of Activity/Goal of Project: PFEL's upwelling and air/ocean indices will be made available for researchers through our homepage. Users will be able to calculate online time series of wind, upwelling and related measures for any location in the world. The user will be able to visualize, subset, and download the data to aid in the research.
Description of Accomplishment and Significant Results: Scientists can now obtain over the internet a variety of products calculated from FNMOC's pressure fields, for any location in the world. These include pressure, the geostrophic wind components, the geostrophic wind stress components, and the two components of Ekman transport. In addition, PFEL's upwelling index can now be calculated on-line for any location once the user gives the desired angle of rotation of the coastline. The data can be subsetted in both space and time, visualized on-line, and downloaded in a variety of formats.
Significance of Accomplishment (e.g., to the Center, to Management, and to NMFS Strategic plan Goals): The completion of this milestone gives researchers easy access to a variety of environmental data that can be used to mitigate natural phenomena on U.S west coast salmon and groundfish stocks through the analysis of the role of environmental variability in the population dynamics of the stocks and in forecasting future risks to the viability of the fish stocks.
Problems: None
Key Contact: Lynn deWitt (831-648-9036, ldewitt@pfeg.noaa.gov)