An put in marsh organ on the Apalachicola Nationwide Estuarine Analysis Reserve within the Florida Panhandle. A NOS-sponsored venture within the Gulf of Mexico employs the marsh organ to imitate sea stage rise impacts on marsh vegetation and inform forecast fashions. Picture courtesy of Jim Morris, College of South Carolina.
Scientists are at all times searching for methods to measure sea-level rise and its long-term results on coastal processes. To that finish, the College of South Carolina and NOAA’s Nationwide Facilities for Coastal Ocean Science developed a easy system known as a “marsh organ” (as a result of its graduated “pipes” resemble these of an organ) to find out how nicely an estuary could reply to rising sea ranges.
Organising the marsh organ is a very muddy course of. Scientists working to put in the instrument could discover themselves waist-deep within the comfortable marsh sediments! As soon as the organ is in place, they fill the tubes with mud and plant marsh grasses in every one. In a yr or two, they return to the marsh organ to reap the grass and measure how a lot it has grown.
Every “pipe” of the marsh organ represents a various water-level “elevation.” Because the tides ebb and stream, the marsh and the pipes are topic to rising and falling water ranges. Relying on the quantity of flooding and different components, the marsh vegetation develop accordingly. The info is then used to tell a mannequin that helps scientists forecast the future well being of the marsh.