Fugro Oceanor Awarded Poseidon II Contract
Fugro Oceanor has been awarded the contract for the second operational phase of Poseidon, the sea condition forecasting system in the Aegean and the only operating European network of its kind in the Mediterranean. Under the terms of the EUR 6M (equivalent USD 7,7M) contract, Fugro Oceanor will be upgrading the existing eleven oceanographic buoys and numerical forecasting capabilities, and also installing Fugro Oceanor buoy technology and ocean instrumentation as well as a supercomputer. Operated by the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research (HCMR) the Poseidon II programme will also include the observation of tsunami waves.
The expected benefits from upgrading and extending the Poseidon system include a reinforcement of national security, the provision of data and information on the prevailing real-time condition of the sea (hydrodynamical, chemical, biological and physical), as well as the provision of reliable short-term and long-term forecasting on sea conditions, safe shipping, the protection of the marine ecosystem, and improved management of environmental disasters, the development of fishing and the creation of new jobs.
Poseidon II sees a number of instances of international co-operation. For example, it will explore new measurement techniques to estimate the total precipitation at sea surface based on acoustic measurements at great depths - this part of the project will be run in co-operation with NASA and the University of Connecticut. Working in close co-operation with the University of the Aegean, the project focuses on the calibration of instruments and data management; and the delivery of a new generation atmospheric model with improved schemes for data assimilation will involve the universities of Athens and Connecticut.
Throughout the 26-month contract tailor-made publications and reports will be prepared to demonstrate the progress of the project and its importance both to the public and to marine research in the Eastern Mediterranean. The work of the existing Poseidon system with its on line data, weather, wave and circulation forecasts is available online.
