UACE: SMART submarine telecommunication cables to monitor global change and tsunamis in the global ocean



    • Session:
      Acoustic methods and technologies for ocean observatories
    • Paper:
      SMART submarine telecommunication cables to monitor global change and tsunamis in the global ocean
    • Author(s):
      Bruce Howe
    • Abstract:
      More than a million kilometers of submarine cables traverse the world’s oceans, bringing Internet service to billions of people. These remarkable systems connect people, nations, and economies, but this infrastructure could provide even more, adding invaluable environmental data for understanding the ocean above and the Earth beneath the seafloor. In light of this potential, an international joint task force (JTF) of three United Nations agencies (ITU/WMO/UNESCO-IOC) is working to incorporate environmental monitoring sensors into transoceanic submarine cable systems. Adding small external environmental sensors (e.g., temperature, pressure, acceleration) to the optical amplifiers/repeaters (spaced every ~60 km) of such systems would provide an unparalleled global network of real-time data for ocean climate and sea level monitoring and disaster mitigation from earthquake and tsunami hazards—a Science Monitoring And Reliable Telecommunications (SMART) network. The progress made in the last several years is reviewed, including ideas for a future implementation incorporating acoustics. (see http://www.itu.int/en/ITU-T/climatechange/task-force-sc/Pages/default.aspx )
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    Contact details

    • Contact person:
      Dr Bruce Howe
    • e-mail:
    • Affiliation:
      University of hawaii at Manoa
    • Country:
      United States