UW News

October 18, 2007

Delaney to speak on ‘environmental renaissance’

John Delaney, the UW oceanographer who is leading the effort to build a cabled underwater observatory off the Washington and Oregon coasts, will speak on Tuesday, Oct. 30 about how the world is poised At the Leading Edge of an Environmental Renaissance.

The lecture — which is at 7 p.m. in 130 Kane — is free and open to the public, but those wishing to attend are asked to register in advance by calling 206-543-0540 or by going to http://www.washington.edu/alumni and clicking on “Provost’s Distinguished Lecture” under “Endless Campus.”

The cabled underwater observatory is one part of a $330 million effort funded by the National Science foundation to better monitor coastal and regional U.S. oceans, as well as parts of the world’s oceans. The regional component off the Pacific Northwest, referred to as the regional scale nodes project, will enable researchers to study the processes that, for example, regulate global climate, store human-caused carbon, support major fish stocks and threaten coastlines with storms, tsunamis and harmful algal blooms.

The planned 750 miles of cable will have five nodes, which are like electrical outlets and Internet connections on the seafloor. Instruments and robots will plug into secondary nodes to draw power, transmit data to shore and receive instructions from operators on land.

The fall Provost distinguished Lecture is sponsored by the office of Provost Phyllis Wise, the College of Ocean and Fishery Sciences and the UW Alumni Association.

An earlier story about Delaney’s project can be found here. The Web site for the regional component of NSF’s Ocean Observatories Initiative is at http://www.ooi.washington.edu.

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