We are so data poor in Puget Sound. We know a lot more about the Equatorial Pacific Ocean than about Puget Sound in terms of having real-time data that’s constantly feeding back.

"Our networked profiling buoy has a sensor package that takes variables such as salinity, temperature, and oxygen, and also how much chlorophyll is there, indicating the phytoplankton. It tells us about the currents — the full water column attributes — because the surface and the deep have very different conditions and it’s important if we’re going to understand how the Sound flushes.

The other thing is that it’s networked, so it does those profiles once per hour every hour and then relays that back in near-real time so we’re looking at the data minutes after it’s been taken.

You have to have knowledge as the first step to any actions."