April 2026

The Eyes on the Ocean™ Newsletter is an informal way of keeping you up-to-date on U.S. IOOS® activities.

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Turbulent ocean background with images of Carl Gouldman, Derrick Snowden, and Dave Easter superimposed. Congratulates them as the 2026 Caraid Award Winners and has the IOOS Association logo at the bottom.

A current Ocean Technology Transition project is deploying low-cost dissolved oxygen sensors on traps in the Pacific Northwest, providing fishermen with near real-time oxygen conditions that help them manage their traps while also providing valuable observing data to other fishermen, the scientific community, fisheries managers and policy makers. Have a great prototype for ocean observing? Check out our new OTT funding opportunity! Photo credit: Pat Kemmish, F/V Richard H

The IOOS Spring Meeting was held last month in Washington, D.C. bringing together the IOOS Office, IOOS Association, and leadership from the eleven IOOS Regional Associations to hold strategic discussions on the direction of IOOS. Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and Deputy NOAA Administrator Dr. Tim Petty provided opening remarks on NOAA’s priorities and future plans to kick off the two day meeting. Dr. Krisa Arzayus followed with a presentation on IOOS Program Office priorities and programmatic updates. NOS Deputy Assistant Administrator Rachael Dempsey also provided an update on National Ocean Service modeling efforts. 

The meeting included additional discussions around unified messaging, High-frequency radar strategy, and national perspectives, milestones, and next steps on the water level and webcam initiatives. We also heard additional presentations from NOAA’s Ocean Acidification, Global Ocean Monitoring and Observing, and Aquaculture programs on how we might work together in the future. Spring brings renewal and growth, and we look forward to working across the network to grow IOOS this year.

We are also pleased to share that IOOS’ Ocean Technology Transition (OTT) program released its 2026 Notice of Funding Opportunity. This opportunity seeks in-demand prototype ocean, coastal, and Great Lakes observing technologies and data management technologies at advanced stages of development and helps transition them to field ready. We’re looking for both observing technology and data management technologies — if you have an up-and-coming product, we’d love to hear from you. Letters of intent (recommended) are due April 27, and the opportunity closes July 15!

From the
IOOS Office

  • IOOS has released a new funding opportunity under the Ocean Technology Transition Program. The objective of OTT is to reduce the research to operations/commercialization transition period for ocean observing, product development, and data management technologies for the ocean, coastal and Great Lakes. “Technologies” includes: sensors, information technology, platform enhancement, and technology modernization efforts. Visit the U.S. IOOS Ocean Technology Transition website for more information about the program, and find more about the notice of funding opportunity here.

  • IOOS has been accepted as a mentoring organization for 2026 Google Summer of Code! Project ideas were proposed and discussed with potential mentors and mentees through March 31, when applications were due. IOOS will rank the applications and Google will announce accepted projects on April 30, 2026.

  • The 12th GOOS Regional Forum and the GOOS Steering Committee Meeting were held the week of March 23 in Hyderabad, India. Gabrielle Canonico attended these meetings on behalf of the U.S. IOOS GOOS Regional Alliance. The meetings focused on GOOS progress, Regional Alliance (GRA) roles and GOOS governance reform, in addition to discussions on building capacity across the GRAs. Gabrielle Canonico was also elected as co-chair of the GOOS Regional Council for the next two years.
     
  • Legislation to reauthorize the Integrated Ocean Observation System (IOOS) passed the U.S. House of Representatives on March 16. The bill, H.R. 2294, reauthorizes and modifies the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s IOOS through Fiscal Year 2030. The bill also directs the Interagency Ocean Observation Committee to develop requirements and processes for regional offices and federally funded projects of the agencies of the committee to collaborate with the regional coastal observing systems for data sharing at regional levels.

Observing Systems, Data, and Modeling

  • Michigan Tech scientists from the Great Lakes Research Center have installed a full-sized meteorological buoy outside Small Craft, a waterfront event space on the Keweenaw Waterway in Hancock, Michigan, to give visitors a firsthand view into how weather and wave data are collected across the Great Lakes. This landfast buoy hull, donated by OTT Hydromet, is affixed with a weather station supported by GLOS to fill an important gap in water-level weather observations in Hancock and Houghton. 

  • Ahead of its 2025 deployment, NANOOS partner Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission’s Coastal Margin Observation and Prediction (CMOP) Field Team completed a major refurbishment and modernization of the Columbia River Plume buoy (SATURN-02) — CMOP’s largest and most complex buoy. Key improvements included integrating and coding a new microcontroller to manage buoy operations and real-time communications and upgrading to improve safety and recovery operations. The buoy successfully collected and telemetered biogeochemical data during the 2025 coastal upwelling season.

  • The Northwest Environmental Moorings Group, partnered with NANOOS and MRV Systems, LLC, have successfully deployed the second of their redesigned ORCA profiling moorings at the entrance to Hood Canal, near Hansville, Washington. The buoys collect wind, air temperature, and water quality parameters, such as water temperature, salinity, and dissolved oxygen. A profiling float attached to the buoy collects the water quality parameters as it moves vertically and samples at all depths.

  • GCOOS is developing a new acoustic database for Rice’s whales. Working with the University of South Florida and NOAA on a project funded by Florida RESTORE, GCOOS is developing an AI classifier — nicknamed GUARDIAN — that can integrate acoustic data from moored, shipboard and unmanned oceanographic systems to systematically monitor and analyze ecosystem level distribution and ecology of the critically endangered whales. The deep learning toolkit detects Rice's whale vocalizations — processing terabytes of ocean audio that no human team could review.

  • NOS Cloud Sandbox Orientation was held during the week of March 9-13, 2026. Recordings will be shared with attendees, as well as posted to the Sandbox website in the near future.

IOOS Enterprise

  • COL’s Ocean Observing Program is launching a new webinar series, Insights from the Ocean Observing Community, to highlight innovative work and emerging priorities shaping the field. “The U.S. Animal Telemetry Network: Observations, Technology, and Data for Cross-Sector Impact” will kick off the series on April 28, 2026 at 3:00 PM ET.

  • The upcoming EcoObs Plankton and User Needs April 2026 workshop organizers are seeking community user feedback. If you are willing, please fill out this short survey here on plankton user needs: https://forms.gle/ZjAky8FKYbqgj2K98

  • The NERACOOS 2025 Annual Impact Report is now available, showcasing a selection of projects that reflect our commitment to advancing ocean information to support public safety, national security, and strong economies.

  • The GLOS 2025 Annual Impact Report is out. In 2025, GLOS focused on sustaining and improving infrastructure and resources for the Great Lakes stakeholder. In 2025, that took the form of ‘community-targeted’ observing deployments, ‘new and enhanced’ Seagull features, and increased partner engagement and regional user outreach.

  • In partnership with IOOS, OCS, GLERL, and the external modeling community, CO-OPS is supporting the development of a new Operational Forecast System in the Northeast, Southeast, and Lake Ontario to address geographic coverage gaps, enhance prediction accuracy, and consolidate the number of models in operations. 

  • SECOORA is now accepting nominations for the 2026 Board of Directors election. Members may nominate qualified individuals or self-nominate to help guide our mission advancing coastal ocean observing and informed decision-making across the Southeast. Materials due by 5pm April 10, 2026.

Partners

  • NOAA NDBC’s Mission Control Center reengaged inactive partners, restoring communication, validating station status, and removing unsupported assets. Collaboration with NWS Alaska corrected barometric pressure data to MSL, restoring 36 stations and improving data quality in a sparse region.

  • To expand community engagement and increase the accessibility of our activities, the 8th NOAA AI Hybrid Workshop will host virtual events in March and June. The Workshop event series will conclude with a 3-day hybrid event in Boulder, Colorado with panels and sessions spanning all topics around AI for environmental sciences.

  • At Ocean Sciences 2026 in Glasgow, Scotland, the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) Lead Principal Investigator Jim Edson presented an overview of more than a decade of biogeochemical and physical ocean observations collected through OOI. Read more.

  • There is one month left to apply to the Marine Technology Society’s 2026 EMERGE Program for early career ocean professionals (ECOP). Applications are due on Friday, April 17th.

New Papers and Reports

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