The Australian coastal ocean radar network facility

Abstract

The Australian Coastal Ocean radar Network (ACORN) is a monitoring network of HF radars which are being installed around Australia under a National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS). It is a five-year project, at the end of which there will be five pairs of radar stations and one triplet installed and operating, enabled by the central pool of funding for the Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS) which is a part of NCRIS, and augmented by funding from other sources. At each chosen site there is a pair (or triplet) of radar stations, mounted on the shore, which receive radar echoes from the rough sea. Four of the pairs of radar stations are phased array installations and one pair and the triplet are of the amplitude direction finding genre. The NCRIS strategy is to provide easily accessed data, freely available to researchers in quality controlled archives. The IMOS aim is to produce data which will support research into coastal dynamics and exchange between the open ocean and the continental shelf. In addition to research in coastal oceanography, the data are available for algorithm development and evaluation of new applications for HF ocean radar. There is potential for application of the data to management of coastal marine resources, and in marine safety areas. Real-time maps of surface currents and the prospect of short-term forecasting have the potential to reduce search areas in coastal waters and to make pollution/spill mitigation more effective. With the establishment of HF radar monitoring stations like those in ACORN, there is growing opportunity for researchers around the world to access data from well curated archives to carry out basic research on physical oceanography, or applications research without having direct access to the measuring facility. This feature brings the ACORN HF radars into GEOSS for coastal processes and dynamics.