Looks like Benjamin Thompson is involved and his past contributions here were always enlightening and super technically enlightening.
This aligns nicely with a project I’m currently working on, so wanted to see if anyone here (possibly Benjamin himself) could shed some light on the current status of this project.
Context: I live/surf at the confluence of a river that is downstream from the largest hog producing county in the world (http://qz.com/433750/the-world-eats-cheap-bacon-at-the-expense-of-north-carolinas-rural-poor/. When we have heavy rains or tropical storm systems the water runoff flows downstream into the Cape Fear river. The outflow of this river into the Atlantic Ocean is 8 miles south and there’s an inlet 2 miles north of my home. As it typically happens, tropical systems are usually the best times to surf, so a higher than average time is spent in the ocean around these times, which correlates typically to the times of the highest issues with water quality.
Would be interesting to plot the pH data along with a myriad of other data points that are somewhat non-related such at tide, buoy, wind data.
I’d also like to know more about access to the data.
From what I’ve read the plan is to distribute the fins through Surfrider Chapters, but it’s hard to find any clear info. Figured someone here is/was likely involved in some aspect of the project.
Lawless,
After I posted my questions, it occurred to me pH was likely their gauge for ocean acidification (increasing atmospheric CO2 lowering ocean pH).
Looks like a citizen (surfer) ocean data collection project in the surf zone for use by the global scientific community to help monitor the status of our oceans.
Excess nutrient loads (sewage effluent, fertilizer run-off, etc.) would stimulate excess photosynthesis during the day (CO2 removal, high pH). At night, they would cause much higher respiration and would drop pH and lower DO (dissolved oxygen).
Looks like the pilot smarfin release was done in 2017 through the San Diego Surfrider chapter. Makes sense since Scripps is involved. Did a Google search with the search string “surfrider foundation smartfin project” and got these links: https://smartfin.org/ http://www.surfrider.org/pages/smartfin http://www.surfrider.org/press-center/entry/surfers-become-citizen-scientists-as-surfboard-fin-collects-critical-ocean
Just called Scripps Communications office. I got their voice mail. Left a message and my number saying I am interested in the Smartfin project and wanted to know if/how it would be possible for me to access Smartfin data. Do not know if they will respond…
I signed up for that last year and never got any confirmation or any sort of messaging back. I read an interview with the founder of the project and he mentioned the SmartFin being distributed exclusively through Surfrider and you had to be a member to get one, which is a pretty cool way of going about it. It helps ensure you’re getting people who are aligned with the overall mission.
Edit: missed Stoneburners links above, edited my post and removed duplicate links
"I read an interview with the founder of the project and he mentioned the SmartFin being distributed exclusively through Surfrider and you had to be a member to get one, "
This and the last link I posted about Smarfin indicated that the first / “pilot” program will be through the Surfrider chapter in San Diego. Sounds like that will be the only location for now…