The Norwegian Meteorological Institute has, with assistance of CODAR Ocean Sensors, Ltd. (USA) and CodarNor (Norway), installed the first SeaSonde for permanent, year-round operation north of the Arctic Circle, on the island Fruholmen at 71 degrees N latitude.
This Long-Range SeaSonde unit features the novel low-power transceiver hardware configuration to minimize the
required input power, an important aspect of working in remote areas where access to normal power grid is not possible.
The first oil field in the Barents Sea Goliat, operated by the Italian oil company ENI came into production this year. The purpose of the new HF radar installation is to improve prediction of oil spill trajectories in case of an oil spill from the Goliat platform.
Data from the radar will be assimilated into the ROMS ocean model run operationally by the Norwegian Meteorological Institute. Tests have shown that substantial improvements of the ocean model can be achieved by using SeaSonde data.
Oil companies Shell and ENI are financing the project.
A second radar will be installed more to the East of Fruholmen in spring 2017 as soon as weather permits. |
