Thursday, 4:30 PM
Woods Hole Oceanographic to lead $97.7M research effort
By David Abel, Globe Staff
A team led by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution has won a $97.7 million research grant from the National Science Foundation to build an ocean observation system of buoys and robotic underwater vehicles off Cape Cod.
It is the largest such award in the oceanographic institution's history.
The federal dollars come as the institution has struggled in recent years with a slowdown in grants for basic research.
The institution will lead a team that includes the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, and Oregon State University's College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences, state and federal officials said. The contract is to be officially announced tomorrow in Woods Hole.
The team will build and operate the coastal and global components of the National Science Foundation's $331 million Ocean Observatories Initiative.
Data collected by the observation system should allow researchers to improve weather forecasts, better manage commercial fisheries and algae blooms that cause red tide, and more closely track the impact of climate change.
