In the News:

COAPS PhD Student Wins Guy Harvey Excellence Award in Marine Science

January 2010: Austin Todd, COAPS PhD student in oceanography, has been selected as a recipient of the first Guy Harvey Excellence Award in Marine Science. The award is administered by the Florida Sea Grant College Program and recognizes undergraduate and graduate students enrolled full time at Florida institutions of higher education who are conducting work related to bettering our renewable, finite marine resources through science. The $2,000 award will be used to support Austin's research into understanding the physical mechanisms responsible for the onshore transport of gag grouper larvae from spawning grounds near the northeastern Gulf of Mexico continental shelf break to sea grass beds along the coast of the Florida Big Bend.

WeatherFest 2010

January 2010: Please join us on Saturday, January 30, for WeatherFest 2010! WeatherFest is a fun and educational day for the entire family, and is hosted by the National Weather Service in Tallahassee, the Florida State University Department of Meteorology, and the North Florida Chapter of the American Meteorological Society. The event will be held at the Love Building on the main FSU campus from 10am until 5pm. COAPS and CoCoRaHS will have a booth setup with activities and handouts.

WeatherFest website

Northern Gulf Institute Studies Ocean Processes Impacting Fish Populations

January 2010: In collaboration with the NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS - Panama City) and as part of the NOAA Northern Gulf Institute (NGI), research is being conducted at The Florida State University to better understand the physical oceanographic and atmospheric environment of the Florida Big Bend Region (BBR) in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico and its impacts on regional ecosystems and fish populations. This is the least studied region of the U.S. Gulf Coast, yet supports abundant ecologically and economically important fish populations.

The BBR encompasses a variety of habitat supporting finfish populations including estuarine, sea grass, and hard bottom reef systems from the coast to the outer edge of the wide shelf. Several important fish species depend on these different habitats at various times during their life cycle. For example, gag grouper (Mycteroperca microlepis) adults inhabit hard bottom reefs over the inner and middle shelf throughout most of the year. During the winter, there is an offshore migration leading to the spawn on offshore reefs along the outer edge of the continental shelf (70-90m deep). After a 1-2 month pelagic larval phase on the shelf, gag settle in seagrass habitats close to shore where their abundance can vary as much as 200-fold among years (Fitzhugh et al. 2005). The mechanism by which the larvae are transported to the nearshore seagrass beds in not yet understood. A numerical modeling and observational approach is being used to identify and characterize the mechanism by which the larvae migrate to the seagrass nursery habitat. The potential interactions between various physical processes and circulation patterns with larval behavior are being investigated.

The existence and variability of the onshore transport mechanism may in part explain the large variability in recruitment, in turn leading to variations in adult populations. Better knowledge of these processes may lead to improved stock assessments for better management of the fisheries.

For more information, please contact Dr. Steve Morey, Associate Research Scientist at COAPS.

December Climate Summary for Florida

January 2010: The Florida Climate Center has released its December Climate Summary for Florida. The report shows that most average temperatures were near normal while rainfall totals were well above normal in the northern, central, and east-coastal areas during the month of December.

December Climate Summary for Florida

Florida CoCoRaHS January Newsletter

January 2010: The latest issue of the Florida Community Collaborative Rain, Hail & Snow Network (CoCoRaHS) newsletter is now available. This newsletter is created by Melissa Griffin, Assistant State Climatologist at COAPS, and provides information for volunteers who collect rain gauge measurements across the state.

Florida CoCoRaHS January 2010 Newsletter (PDF, 3.1 MB)

How to Become a CoCoRaHS Volunteer