Project Leader: Eric Wolanski

The oceans are the common factor of all research conducted at AIMS. This project provides numerical models of ocean movement and seawater properties onto which other studies can be mapped and interlinked.

Scientists in this project employ theoretical, numerical, and experimental techniques to formulate models that explain and predict how physical marine environments affect coastal zone ecosystems. The project deals primarily with ocean circulation and sea surface oscillations along Australian tropical continental margins, and thus is supportive of most research undertaken at AIMS, including work on biological, chemical and sedimentary processes. The unifying concept is the understanding of fluxes and balances of mass, energy, heat and solar radiation at widely varying scales of space and time.

In particular, this project is concerned with the role of water circulation, waves and associated mixing processes in transporting marine organisms, ocean constituents and pollutants within Australia’s tropical shelf waters.

State-of-the-art technology is being used to develop predictive models for these processes. In addition, these science-based tools are being designed as decision support systems by incorporating advanced data visualisation techniques to synthesise layers of complex information in graphical form.

Goals

• to describe, measure and predict how the physical marine processes and their long-term variability affect coastal zones, continental shelf waters and marine ecosystems;
• to provide models which support coastal marine resources management;
• to provide the oceanographic information which underpins other AIMS projects.

Remote sensing of tropical waters (Leader: William Skirving)

State-of-the-art technology is used to collect and interpret data from satellite, airborne and in situ radiometers to produce broad-scale maps of ocean conditions. A current priority is mapping sea surface temperatures for 1998 when massive coral bleaching was observed throughout most of the Great Barrier Reef and parts of north Western Australia.

Meso-scale oceanography (Leader: Derek Burrage)

This task monitors the ocean currents of East and West coasts using a combination of moored instruments and satellite altimetry measures of sea surface height. These observations are then assimilated with information on tides and winds into hydrodynamic models that predict circulation and mixing in the coastal seas.

Models of reef fish dispersal (Leader: Richard Brinkman)

In collaboration with biologists, mathematical models are being developed to predict the distribution and relative abundance of larval fish near coral reefs. These models assimilate new information on the swimming and sensory ability of the larvae into existing models of circulation.

Models for land-sea interactions (Leader: Eric Wolanski)

This study uses a combination of models and observations to study the discharge of freshwater into the Great Barrier Reef Lagoon, and to determine the combined impact of river-born nutrients and sediment on reef corals.

Coastal climatology (Leader: Janice Lough)

Climate maps and predictive models of future climates are being constructed from long-term weather records extracted from coral cores that predate instrumented records, from satellite observations of the sea surface, and from an extensive network of AIMS weather stations that collect daily information on conditions in the Great Barrier Reef and north Western Australia.

Supporting Tropical Fisheries

• models for larval fish dispersal;
• models of currents and mixing processes in the Great Barrier Reef and the North-West Shelf.

Marine Biogeochemistry of Contaminants

• river plumes.

Sustaining Coral Reefs

• satellite observations of sea surface temperature and coral bleaching.

Human Impacts on Coastal Marine Ecology

• hydrodynamic models for predicting the dispersal of nutrients.

Marine Biotechnology: Mariculture, Biodiversity and Genetics

• models of larval dispersal and gene flows.

Links with other organisations

James Cook University, CSIRO Marine, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the European Space Agency (ESA), the Japanese Space Agency (NASDA), the European Community (Marine Science and Technology Program) and the National Institute of Water and Air (NIWA, New Zealand).

Links with strategic directions

1998/99 funding base
Total budget $1,127,000 (77% appropriation; 23% external)

Major external sources:
CRC for the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area
Orbimage (USA)

Scientific staff

Research scientists: Derek Burrage, Katharina Fabricius (20%), Janice Lough (40%), Eric Wolanski (60%).

Scientific support: Richard Brinkman, John Carleton (50%), Felicity McAllister, Mark Rehbein, William Skirving, Craig Steinberg.