Australia - What is IMOS?

IMOS stands for Intergrated Marine Observing System. Last week we blogged about Professor Iain Suthers first rate op ed countering shark hype in Australia with common sense.

Dr Suthers sent us a link this week to the IMOS Project and we spent the next two hours "geeking out" on this amazing program:

IMOS is a distributed set of equipment and data-information services which collectively contribute to meeting the needs of marine climate research in Australia . The observing system provides data in the open oceans around Australia out to a few thousand kilometres as well as the coastal oceans. The IMOS Office coordinates the deployment of a wide range of equipment and assembles the data through 11 Facilities distributed around the country. The data are made available to researchers through the electronic Marine Information Infrastructure (eMII) located at the University of Tasmania . The IMOS infrastructure also contributes to Australia 's role in international programs of ocean observing.

IMOS was planned through extensive consultation with the Australian marine research community through Nodes, including a bluewater open ocean node and five regional nodes around the country. IMOS is coordinated and managed nationally by staff at the University of Tasmania supported by CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research . IMOS is an NCRIS funded project.