Internet access to Great Lakes CoastWatch remote sensing information

CoastWatch is a nationwide National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) program started as the result of an occurrence of red tide off the North Carolina coast in 1987. Within this program, the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory (GLERL) functions as the Great Lakes CoastWatch regional node. In this capacity, GLERL obtains, produces, and delivers environmental data and products for near real-time monitoring of the Great Lakes to support environmental science, decision making, and supporting research. This is achieved by providing Internet access to near real-time and retrospective satellite observations, in-situ Great Lakes data, and derived products to federal, state, and local agencies, academic institutions, and the public via the Great Lakes CoastWatch web site (http://coastwatch.glerl.noaa.gov). To make Great Lakes CoastWatch imagery and in situ data more useful, a new tool utilizing a JAVA applet is implemented on the web site. The JAVA applet (JAVA GIS) allows the interactive viewing and analysis of satellite surface temperature and visible imagery with data overlays such as bathymetry, gridded wind fields, and marine observation (buoy, CMAN, Coast Guard) data