Regional Scale Nodes

The fiber-optic cables of the Regional Scale Nodes (RSN) component of the Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) will carry unprecedented electrical power (up to 200 kW) and telecommunications bandwidth (up to 240 Gbits/sec) into the oceans to serve the needs of science, education, and humanity at large. With design and construction led by the University of Washington, the nearly 800 kilometers of RSN cable will create a large-aperture natural laboratory for conducting a wide range of long-term and innovative experiments within the ocean volume using real-time control over the entire cabled system.

Why the Northeast Pacific?

A representative suite of natural phenomena that occur throughout the world's oceans and seafloor are found in the Northeast Pacific Ocean. Cabled ocean observatories in the U.S. and Canada that provide significant electrical power and high telecommunications bandwidth in real-time to arrays of sensors on the seafloor and throughout the water column will enable scientists to conduct local investigations of such global processes as major ocean currents, active earthquake zones, creation of new seafloor, and rich environments of marine plants and animals.

Designed to be expandable

The RSN system is designed to be expandable during its 25-year lifetime. There is potential, with additional funding, to add study sites and myriad sensor networks at other key locations identified by the scientific community.

Improving Predictive Models of Ocean Processes

The continuous, high-quality observations made over the two- to three-decade lifespan of the whole OOI system will provide essential data to improve predictive models of ocean processes. integration of data from the Global, Regional, and Coastal Scales nodes by the Ocean Observatories Initiative's Cyberinfrastructure will provide new insights into how the ocean functions and will form the basis for learning to manage, or at least adapt to, the most powerful climate modulating system on the planet--the global ocean.