Photo courtesy the University of South Florida Called the coastal ocean radar, or CODAR, the Lowdermilk Park site is one of three units — two others are in Pinellas County and Venice — that will send out radio frequencies that bounce off the surface of the Gulf then back to a receiving antenna. The units, part of the University of South Florida’s Gulf of Mexico monitoring effort, then use the data to calculate the speed and direction of the surface current.

By CATHY ZOLLO, crzollo@naplesnews.com
November 18, 2004

The day is coming, probably this spring, when high-tech eyes looking out from Naples at the Gulf of Mexico will help everyone from fishermen to storm watchers and rescuers do their jobs better.

It's not much to look at. Just a small, thin tower, about 30 feet high, and a receiver that looks a lot like a whip antenna for a car. They will go at either end of Lowdermilk Park.

Called the coastal ocean radar, or CODAR, the Naples site is one of three units — two others are in Pinellas County and Venice — that will send out radio frequencies that bounce off the surface of the Gulf then back to a receiving antenna. The units, part of the University of South Florida's Gulf of Mexico monitoring effort, then use the data to calculate the speed and direction of the surface current.

That's useful information to folks heading out for a day of fishing or for scientists trying to track red tide or oil spills or searchers out after a missing boater.

Two of the three sites are operational, with the Naples site at Lowdermilk Park expected to join them in the spring, said Jon Staiger, natural resources director for the city of Naples.

"Once this whole system is up and running, you can log on to the computer and get an idea what the sea state is out 60, 80, 100 miles out," Staiger said.

The radar operates at essentially radio frequencies and with the same power it takes to light a 50-watt bulb, so it's safe for people to be near it, said Clifford Merz, Coastal Ocean Monitoring and Prediction System program director at the University of South Florida College of Marine Science.

Staiger said it could also be used to speed up beach cleanup in the event a red tide delivers a few thousand dead fish to the Collier and Lee county coasts.

	ON THE WEB
	For more information about the University of South Florida's ocean observing effort, including CODAR and COMPS, visit: http://comps.marine.usf.edu/

Coastal managers now rely on fishermen to tell them whether unwanted flotsam is headed to Southwest Florida beaches and when it will hit.

In addition to these uses, the system also will provide the most current information available for future hurricanes in the Gulf tracking toward the Southwest Florida coast.

"The COMPS overall goal is to provide real-time data for emergency management use and to improve description and understanding of the relevant physical processes that control coastal flooding," Merz said.

CODAR is part of a larger regional effort begun in 1997 that is known by another acronym: COMPS, or Coastal Ocean Monitoring and Prediction System, that monitors much more of Florida's Gulf coast, including from sites in Lee County at Big Carlos Pass and another soon to be installed at Redfish Pass.

The plan is to have a better idea of what's going on in the water for a variety of users — much like the current National Weather Service — with emphasis on emergency preparedness.

And COMPS is part of an even larger, national effort eventually to monitor all U.S. waters under a system called IOOS, or Integrated Ocean Observing System, that was recommended by the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy in its report to the president in September.

IOOS began as a grassroots effort in the scientific community in 1991. Ultimately, it will compile information gathered from buoys, ships, aircraft, satellites and drifters to track water quality and conditions, marine life, ocean traffic, and other information.

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