What is this? Part One (An introduction)

I realise after putting my first two blogs (Tannum Sands and Lady Elliot Island) you must be dying to know what is this and why do I care? Well I can only answer the former and will assume that the later will surface within you at some point. As for what this is I refer you to an earlier post, which if you're the right person will I'm sure delight you but then lead only to ask more questions like:

• What is ACORN?
  


• and what is HF radar?
  

and so on.
Since I like to answer my own questions as sign of delusional know-it-all syndrome, I will tell you that most humans and ground foraging and hording rodent that look like this

know ACORN to be this

a fruit of prevalent deciduous tree. However it surely has other popular meanings as well, like:

• The Australian College of Operating Room Nurses
  


• The Association of Community Organisations Reform Now
  


• An Apple computer software application for editing images
  


• A manufacturer of stair lifts
  

… and the list goes on. Oddly enough the ACORN that I refer to is not in the top 500 list of entries when simply typing 'acorn' into Google's splendiforabsolawesomest search engine. I guess the ACORN that I refer to is so secret and hush-hush that after you read this you will be whisked away to some isolated bunker in the desert to live out your days working for government espionage and intelligence and never to see your former life again. Where you'll inevitably end your days singing starry ballads while hiring a bed from 10 room roadside motel whose weekly rates are set by a man who goes by 'Disco Pete' and looks like this

If that sounds like fun, then read on. Because the ACORN I refer to is the Australian Coastal Ocean Radar Network and it is the most well run ocean HF radar network in the southern hemisphere. It is lead by this person

but was founded by this person, who now is the pre-eminent chief

and is maintained by this one

and this one too

and myself.
Of course there is one more ACORN team member, but do to the inadvertent anonymity that she has attained in avoiding freely available images of herself from the internet, she will not get the opportunity to reside happily here on this blog for eternity; or until Google goes belly-up and these pages all disappear. Regardless, we are a waning six.
Really we are serious about our job. Though given the freely available images from the internet, as a group, we may be more akin to the cast of the Rocky and Bullwinkle show.
Having said that and introduced the cast, I will get on with the business at hand, continuing on with frivolity!
Without annoyingly explaining myself right out of oblivion, I will tell you that ACORN is one of twelve facilities under the Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS), which is exactly as the name implies. I am quite confident if the acronym IOOS (the United States Integrated Ocean Observing System) was not already widely known (what?!? you don't know IOOS) then the Australians would have used IOOS instead of IMOS. All joking aside, IOOS, and it's brethren and sisters abroad, are playing an every more critical role in how we (the royal we) interact with our coastal ocean. So I encourage you first have a look at IOOS and then have a read through IMOS.
ACORN, as I mentioned before, is a facility underneath IMOS, and logically you inquire: what is a facility in this respect? Well it pretty much is to say that it's a service. Each facility under IMOS can be thought of as service in which science and the general public (if they were not so busy concerning themselves with this) benefit from a host of remote sensors that measure various aspects of the ocean. These measurements are taken (measured) remotely in the environment (ocean or coast or atmosphere or space) and sent to a central location where they are coalesced and distilled into 'products' that anyone with a web-browser can view and retrieve. Ultimately giving a snapshot of the current conditions present in the ocean. Really it is quite awesome and amazing that we (again royalty presides) live in such an information rich world where we can know so much about our environment at any given moment. This knowledge gives people the power to make better decisions as well as the potential to learn new things about the world we live in. Cool!
Really I don't expect most people to give a hoot on what the current conditions of the coastal ocean are and really this ambivalence is just fine. However, I do want people to care about IOOS, IMOS and other national and international integrated marine observing organisations because they are helping society function more efficiently. Really you don't care about your modern Anti-lock Braking System sensors and associated gadgetry required for that system to function as it's supposed to. All you care about is that it stops your vehicle without you skidding to an untimely death. An even more germane analogy would be that of the weather forecast, you don't necessarily care about all the gadgetry necessary to predict the weather you just want it to be mostly right right most of the time. Increasingly, with our dependence on the ocean forming an integral part to modern society, you shouldn't really care how your country gets the goods that are needed to maintain or increase your country's wealth but you do care when these goods end up stuck in some gooey God awful mess along your coastline. Integrated observing organisations are the foundation through which we will manage these accidents and prevent them from becoming disasters. Along with disaster prevention, integrated marine observing networks will increasingly contribute to more accurate weather predictions, as well as used in search and rescue, shipping, commercial fishing, coastal planning, disposal of offshore effluence, desalinisation operation, ocean energy conversion, beach management and numerous recreational benefits. Really it will be this organisation – the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) – which will lead us in achieving integration with all of these remote sensors for real-time forecasting and monitoring of the ocean, atmosphere and Terra firma.
For now I think this is a good place as any to leave off with this and split this blog entry up into two parts as I can imagine your eyes beginning to glaze over. OK, so more later …

Until later … diver down.

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