COSEE NOW

Experiments on the eco-friendly “Dan Drifter”

Thanks to Dan Palance, a summer student at the NOAA lab in Woods Hole, a more eco-friendly drifter has been developed and tested. The “Dan Drifter” is much like the […]

New Developments in 2012
While funding is difficult to come by this year, we have managed to get at least some units in the water after joining forces with a few other groups doing educational/outreach work. As […]

New Drifter Users in 2011
The following institutions have recently joined our efforts to deploy drifters around the country:

UMASS Boston Math and Science Dept
UMASS Boston Environmental, Earth, and Ocean […]

July 2010 New Drifter Designs We have been experimenting with alternative designs this summer in an effort to further reduce the cost and time needed to build surface drifters. Several new prototypes were built and tested in local Woods Hole waters including the: “ Shawn Drifter” which has a 4 by 4 wooden mast and a flotation collar [...]

Drifter building and support team We are happy to have a growing drifter support team to help users with various aspects of the operations. While all members of this team participate in nearly all phases of the process, the specific tasks are as follows: Southern Maine Community College Marine Science: Tom Long – supervisor Kara LaLomia – lead…[Read more]

Drifter Newsletter #6 February 2010 Drifter Website Update We have made some progress in designing a new website to plot all the drifter tracks and to serve the data but we have not yet released it. It will take the place of the rather cluttered site: http://www.nefsc.noaa.gov/drifter/ before the 2010 drifter season gets underway in a few months. [...]

Drifter Newsletter #4 December 2009 NOAA’s Adopt-a-Drifter Program This initiative (www.adp.noaa.gov) has similar objectives to ours in that they engage teachers and students. We are considering ways to merge our respective projects in order to share resources. In a proposal recently submitted to NOAA’s Northeast Consortium, we suggested a…[Read more]

November 2009 Satellite Account Setup Our satellite service-provider has recently instituted a new policy.  Those of you  who get billed directly (or plan to get billed directly in the future) now need to fill out a one-time “business agreement form”. If you haven’t already done so and you plan to deploy drifters in 2010, please let me [...]

October 2009 Urethane Foam There has been some discussion about what  “2-part marine urethane foam” to use when filling the PVC pipe. While SMCC suggests “Poly-U-Foam” (available on line for about $40/quart), there are probably other types in smaller qquantities that will do the job.  US Composites sells a “4-lb kit” for about $20 (catalog # [...]

Sept 2009 Newsletter plan This is the first of what I imagine to be a nearmonthly “newsletter” on drifter issues. Now that there are a few dozen labs using the SMCC/eMOLT drifters, we should probably try to compile our notes. If you have anything you would like to share with others (photos, funny stories, bad experiences, [...]