According to the local news agency new low-cost instruments attached to lobster pots that record bottom temperature and provide data that could help improve ocean circulation models in the Gulf of Maine. This instrument is called Environmental Monitors on Lobster Traps, or eMOLT, is a partnership involving NOAA, the Maine, Massachusetts, Downeast and Atlantic Offshore Lobstermen’s Associations, the Gulf of Maine Lobster Foundation, and the Marine Science Department at Southern Maine Community College (SMCC) in Portland, Maine.
It is informed that the data collected from temperature sensors on the lobster pots and from GPS surface drifters deployed as part of the eMOLT program help ocean circulation modelers better understand processes in the Gulf of Maine, such as how lobster larvae and other planktonic animals and plants, including those that cause harmful algal blooms, drift and settle.
It is said that this information may also help determine how ocean currents disperse, condense and transport pollutants, invasive species, and food for whales in portions of the Gulf of Maine. Jim Manning, an oceanographer at the Woods Hole Laboratory of the Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC), part of NOAA’s Fisheries Service, told that local fishermen already spend their days at sea, have the biggest stake in preserving our coastal marine resources, and are the most knowledgeable of the local waters.
Manning got the idea for eMOLT while conducting research on Georges Bank in the 1990s and seeing many lobster boats in the area. He realized lobstermen had many moorings of their own in the area at fixed locations and depths which could provide needed time-series data at more sites and at far less cost. With the help of NEFSC port agent John Mahoney, Manning approached some local lobstermen in Sandwich and Hyannis, Mass. to see if they were interested in helping collect bottom environmental data, whenever their lobster pots were out. They agreed.
