A 5-day summer school on “Ocean observing systems and ecosystem monitoring” will consist of classroom lectures, laboratory demonstrations of inter-disciplinary ocean sensors, an introduction to ocean observing platforms and fieldwork on a research vessel to deploy ocean observing equipment at sea.  The school will cover a range of sensors and sampling equipment used to measure physical, biological and chemical properties of the ocean.  The utility of time-series datasets generated by moored monitoring stations to estimate net ecosystem metabolism for estuarine and coastal habitats will be demonstrated.

Topics to be covered include: ocean observing system design, platforms (moorings, coastal stations, sea-floor landers, autonomous underwater vehicles), sensors, power, communications (instrument-to-data logger, platform-to-shore, underwater, satellite), sampling strategy, data quality control, and data processing of time-series data.

The lectures and demonstrations will make use of ocean observing systems currently in place in Oregon coastal waters.  Students will gain a conceptual understanding of the ecological processes that contribute to marine ecosystem metabolism, and receive practical experience with the programming, calibration, deployment, recovery, data file formats, QA/QC protocols, metadata development, and database management for the time-series data.  The workshop will include case-history calculations of marine ecosystem metabolism for several local near-shore and estuarine environments.