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The NOAA Hypoxia Watch project provides near-real-time, web-based maps of dissolved
oxygen near the sea floor over the Texas-Louisiana continental shelf during a period
that extends from mid-June to mid-July. The NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service
Mississippi Laboratories at Pascagoula and Stennis Space Center and the NOAA's National
Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) began the Hypoxia Watch project in 2001.
Scientists aboard the NOAA Research Vessel Oregon II measure seawater properties,
such as water temperature, salinity, chlorophyll, and dissolved oxygen, as the Oregon
II cruises the waters south of Pascagoula, MS and then makes its way from Brownsville,
Texas, to the mouth of the Mississippi River. A scientist aboard the ship processes
the measurements from electronic dissolved oxygen sensors, checks the measurements
periodically with chemical analyses of the seawater, then sends the data by FTP to
the NCEI approximately every three to four days. Physical Scientists at NCEI transform
the dissolved oxygen measurements into contour maps, which identify areas of low oxygen,
or hypoxia. During the cruise, as the data is received from the ship, NCEI generates
new maps and publishes them on the web. The first map will usually cover an area off
the Mississippi coast, successive maps will add areas of the continental shelf from
Brownsville to Corpus Christi, and the final map will usually cover the entire Texas-Louisiana-Mississippi
coast. Maps are published every three to four days from approximately June 22 to July
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