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

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From the Director:

Dear IOOS Community,

You will notice some changes in today’s edition of the Eyes on the Ocean Newsletter. We’ve done some spring cleaning and redecorated things a bit, reordering some sections and streamlining parts. We hope you find these changes make the newsletter a little easier to digest and that it will better highlight all the great work happening across the IOOS enterprise. We have also added a brand new section that will focus on IOOS Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Accessibility activities. We welcome your feedback on these changes or other suggestions you may have for improving the newsletter. Please e-mail eoto@noaa.gov with your feedback. 

Thanks,
Carl

From the U.S. IOOS Office:

  • IOOS Strategic Plan Refresh: The IOOS Five Year Strategic Plan was published in 2018 and the IOOS Office has convened a small writing team to refresh the plan as well as draft an approach for implementation. If you are interested in reviewing the revised Strategic Plan and providing comments, please email Krisa.Arzayus@noaa.gov and provide comments by April 4th. 

Observation Subsystem and Sensor Technologies:

  • Surface Current Mapping
    • BayCurrents app is now available in the Apple Store here, and the Android store here. This mobile app displays a re-scalable map of current and forecasted surface currents within the San Francisco Bay, and its approaches, in high resolution. This app uses outputs from the San Francisco Bay Operational Forecast System (SFBOFS) with forecasts out to 48 hrs. This effort includes contributions from CeNCOOS, NANOOS, UC Davis, Axiom Data Science, CODAR Ocean Sensors, US IOOS and more. Feedback is welcome here.
    • Successful FCC Part 90 Certification Testing in Hawai’i: Congratulations to Dr. Pierre Flament and the Radio Oceanography Laboratory at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (http://www.satlab.hawaii.edu/wiki) on the successful FCC Part 90 certification testing of their high-frequency radar (HFR)!

  • Gliders
    • UG2 2022 Glider Workshop: The UG2 Workshop Steering Group continues to plan for this workshop scheduled for September 20–22, 2022.  This in-person event will be held at the Botanical Gardens on the campus of University of Washington in Seattle, WA.  The committee is currently locking down hotels and working on a call for abstracts and posters. 
    • UG2 Webinar: Next UG2 webinar will be held April 21st, 2–3:30 Eastern Time.  Briefs will include “A Brief Introduction to the University of Alaska Fairbanks Glider Center.” Please mark your calendars. More info will be posted here: https://underwatergliders.org/index.php/webinars-and-events/ 
    • Click here to join UG2
    • UG2 Glider Related Job Postings

       

  • Buoys & Moorings
    • Researcher testing a rugged winter monitoring system in Lake Ontario: Getting real-time measurements of water conditions in the Great Lakes during the winter has always been a challenge for researchers. In the Great Lakes, the winter is not just cold, but also punctuated with fierce storms that bring dangerous waves and strong winds.  Dave O’Donnell, an engineer at UFI, had helped to build an over-winter system to measure real-time turbidity in an icy reservoir near New York City. The project had been an overall success and testing it in Lake Ontario seemed a logical next step. Read more here.
    • CRITFC buoys redeployed in PNW: The Baker Bay buoy, monitoring the most ocean-ward lateral bay on the Columbia River, and the Youngs Bay buoy, monitoring the second lateral bay, recently recovered for maintenance, have been redeployed for the 2022 season. Both buoys measure salinity, temperature, oxygen, chlorophyll, turbidity, and CDOM, allowing for insights into phytoplankton blooms and the exchange between the mainstem Columbia and the lateral bays.

  • Marine Life
    • ATN Data Coordinator Joins Canada's OTN International Scientific Advisory Committee: The U.S. Animal Telemetry Network’s (ATN) Data Coordinator, Dr. Megan McKinzie, is a new member of the Ocean Tracking Network (OTN) International Scientific Advisory Committee (ISAC) and attended their kick-off meeting on March 8, 2022. The committee includes members from the U.S., Norway, Canada, South Africa and Australia, and includes representatives from ATN, OTN, the European Tracking Network (ETN) and the Australian Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS) among other academic, private and non-profit institutions. The role of ISAC is to guide, advise and integrate planning of international research projects and assist in assuring that science undertaken around the global has consistent, strategic direction and funding priorities.

Data Management and Cyberinfrastructure (DMAC) Subsystem and Tools Built on IOOS Data:

  • Registration Closes March 31st! IOOS Code Sprint 2022 (April 25 - 28): The IOOS Code Sprint is a 4-day hackathon style event on 25-28 April 2022, organized by the Great Lakes Observing System (GLOS) and the Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) Office. Over the course of the event, teams of developers, academic researchers, and community members will work on projects that address pressing data and information challenges. Projects will relate to the IOOS mission to produce, integrate, and communicate high quality ocean, coastal and Great Lakes information that meets the safety, economic, and stewardship needs of the Nation.
    • Registration is open for those who haven’t registered yet (closes on March 31).The event will be hybrid with an in-person event in Chicago, and the option for virtual participation for those who are unable to travel to be there in person.
    • Weekly coordination meetings will be every Friday at 2pm ET. The meetings are open to all who are interested in planning this year’s code sprint, please contact Mathew.Biddle@noaa.gov if you would like to join. 
    • See https://ioos.github.io/ioos-code-sprint/ for more information.
  • SAVE THE DATE! 2022 IOOS DMAC Meeting - June 14-16, 2022: We are pleased to announce that the 2022 DMAC Meeting will take place virtually on the afternoons (1:00 - 5:00 PM ET) from Tuesday, June 14 through Thursday, June 16. Please save these dates in your calendars.  We will reach out for agenda input for presentation and breakout discussion topics soon. Further information on event logistics will be coming out soon as well. Questions or suggestions about the agenda should go to data.ioos@noaa.gov. 
  • QARTOD

    • Manual for Real-Time Quality Control of High Frequency Radar Surface Current Data Update: We’re working to update the QARTOD Manual for Real-Time Quality Control of High Frequency Radar Surface Current Data, which was first issued in 2016 (https://ioos.noaa.gov/ioos-in-action/manual-real-time-quality-control-high-frequency-radar-surface-current-data/). We plan to incorporate the QC work that’s recently been accomplished by several members of this community, add relevant definitions, verify & update web links, and include things that emerge during the community review.

    • Ocean Best Practice System Update: The OBPS has announced the Ocean Practices Workshop VI will take place virtually with plenaries 5, 6, and 19 October 2022 (each three hours long). Working Group sessions will meet in between, at times of their own choosing. The workshop will cover a broad range of topics proposed and selected by session leads and workshop coordinators. For the plenaries, there are two general themes: 1) Guiding technology evolution and use, and 2) Capacity development/sharing, with an emphasis on developing countries. See the announcement at https://www.oceanbestpractices.org/workshops/ocean-practices-obps-workshop-vi/ 

Modeling and Analysis Subsystem:   

  • No update.

Around the Regions:

  • New Study Quantifies the Economic Cost of 2018 Florida Red Tide: Researchers recently released two new indexes to gauge the severity of red tide events in the Gulf of Mexico. The Bloom Severity Index and the Respiratory Index now offer a standardized and objective way to gauge how severe red tides are.  The indexes showed that the so-called “2018 bloom” — which actually occurred from October 2017-January 2019 — was the most severe bloom documented. Read more here. 
  • AOOS organizes Arctic workshop: AOOS is helping organize a community workshop on March 28 during the Arctic Science Summit Week in Tromsø, Norway on  "Advancing Arctic Observation and Data Actions within the U.N. Ocean Decade Plan". AOOS Senior Advisor Molly McCammon was on the original Task Force that developed an Arctic Action Plan, and is now working with an ad hoc group to develop a proposal for an Arctic Regional Program.  The session will be held from 14:00 - 18:00 CET and will be available both in person and online. More information and registration can be found here.
  • NERACOOS Annual Report available: Check out the 2021 NERACOOS Annual Report! Inside you'll find highlights from last year, thoughts on 2020, neat graphics, and more.
  • Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary Condition Report: OCNMS released its Condition Report, which features many NANOOS contributors and contributions from NANOOS-supported assets. See also this article that describes the process used to produce the report, including significant tribal input, and highlights major results.

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Accessibility:

  • Sharing a Passion for Ocean and Coastal Acidification with Janet Reimer: Learn more about Southeast Ocean and Coastal Acidification Network Co-Coordinator Janet Reimer and why she is passionate about ocean acidification education! Read the story here. 

Interagency and International Collaboration/News:

  • UN Decade of Ocean Science For Sustainable Development Updates: 
    • Save the Date and Register Now! Fifth Ocean Decade Laboratory – A Safe Ocean: From 5 to 7 April, the fifth Ocean Decade Laboratory will take place on the topic of the Ocean Decade Outcome “A Safe Ocean”. It will be hosted by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research in partnership with the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO. The ocean has tremendous power. It is capable of devastating coastal communities, ocean users, ecosystems, and economies. To mitigate the ocean’s hazards, make it safer and improve community resilience, more evenly distributed, higher-density ocean data and reliable forecasting systems as well as improved communication and governance are urgently needed. 
    • Ocean Decade Data Coordination Group Meeting: The third meeting of the Ocean Decade Data Coordination Group took place March 23, 2022. The group is just starting to build a Strategic Plan for the implementation of the Ocean Decade Data Coordination Platform. 
  • Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) News:
    • NSF Issues Dear Colleague Letter to Support Ocean Technical Workforce Education: The National Science Foundation (NSF) issued a “Dear Colleague Letter” (DCL) on March 14, 2022 seeking proposals for curriculum development and student engagement to support the expansion of the ocean technical workforce. Through the DCL, NSF hopes to expand the technical capacity of the U.S. workforce in high-technology fields through training programs that educate the next generation of ocean technicians, data scientists, ocean engineers, and ocean scientists.
    • Sixteenth Turn of the Coastal Endurance Array: A team of ten scientists and engineers will depart aboard the R/V Sikuliaq in late March for a two-week expedition to recover and redeploy ocean observing equipment at the Coastal Endurance Array. Located in the northeast Pacific off the coasts of Oregon and Washington, the Coastal Endurance Array consists of two cross-shelf moored array lines, designed to observe cross-shelf and along-shelf variability in the region. Read more about the expedition here: https://oceanobservatories.org/2022/03/sixteenth-turn-of-the-coastal-endurance-array/ 
  • Register now: NWS Partners Webinar - April 11, 2022: Please register here to join the NWS for a Partners Webinar scheduled for April 11, 2022 at 2:00pm - 3:00pm eastern time. We would like to afford you an opportunity to directly engage with the NWS leadership to share strategic and programmatic updates. The agenda will include NWS strategic and programmatic updates and questions and discussion with all participants. Questions? E-mail andrea.bleistein@noaa.gov. 
  • New Progress Report on Mapping U.S. Waters: The Interagency Working Group on Ocean and Coastal Mapping released its third annual report on progress made in mapping U.S. ocean, coastal, and Great Lakes waters. The report shows that 52% of U.S. waters are still unmapped, down from 59% in 2017. The 2020 National Strategy for Mapping, Exploring, and Characterizing the United States Exclusive Economic Zone and the global Seabed 2030 initiative make comprehensive ocean mapping a priority for the coming decade. This report tracks progress toward these important goals. Knowledge of the depth, shape, and composition of the seafloor has far-reaching benefits, including safe navigation, coastal resilience, conservation, and supporting sustainable ocean economies.
  • OCS Launches NOAA Chart Display Service: The new NOAA Chart Display Service renders NOAA electronic navigational chart data with "traditional paper chart" symbology — in other words, using symbols, labels, and color schemes familiar to those who use NOAA’s paper nautical charts or the NOAA Custom Chart application. Users can incorporate the display service into multiple chart formats, including on web-based and mobile mapping applications. This display service replaces the Raster Navigational Chart (RNC) Tile Service and the Seamless RNC Service, which were shut down as part of NOAA’s transition away from traditional paper and raster nautical charts.
  • New Version of NGS Coordinate Conversion Tool: The National Geodetic Survey (NGS) released an updated version of its free online NGS Coordinate Conversion and Transformation Tool, which allows users to convert between different coordinate systems and transform between different reference frames and datums in a single step. Version 2.1 adds options to specify height units and to customize export data, more FAQs, and a link to the source code. Video tutorials and in-depth FAQ lists are available online for surveyors and geodesists new to the software.
  • New Learning Module on Water Levels Available: CO-OPS, in partnership with the COMET MetEd program, launched a new module, Working With Water Level Data: Establishing Accurate Water Levels. The training provides participants with guidance on planning for and installing water level stations, analyzing data, and understanding acceptable uncertainty for water levels. It is the second in a series of modules designed to help coastal practitioners better understand their water level observations, data analysis, and tidal datum computation to assist with resilience and restoration projects. CO-OPS is developing other COMET modules in this series on quality control/assurance and understanding inundation analysis.
  • CO-OPS Performs Successful Website Failover Test: Last week, CO-OPS conducted a failover test of its Tides and Currents website and associated web services. This test determined whether core public data and products would continue to be available in the event of server and/or cloud outages. The test simulated a full East Coast region cloud outage by turning off core East Coast servers and related cloud resources. During the test, the website, database, and all related functions “failed over,” automatically compensating for the outage with minimal service downtime. Successful completion of the test highlights CO-OPS’s ability to provide continuous, mission-essential data to the public and partners in the event of outages.
  • NCCOS, RETI Center Create Citizen Science Opportunity in NYC: NCCOS’s Phytoplankton Monitoring Network partnered with the Resilience, Education, Training, and Innovation (RETI) Center to provide education on harmful algal blooms and their effects on shellfish and macroalgae aquaculture. The RETI Center is developing an installation of floating platforms that support plants and marine life within upper New York Harbor. As part of assessment and upkeep on the installation, students from local schools will monitor for harmful algal blooms. NCCOS is coordinating this citizen science effort to monitor water quality and phytoplankton species. The RETI Center is a non-profit organization dedicated to building coastal community resilience.

Upcoming Meetings (bolded meetings have direct IOOS involvement):

Please check links as we move forward as things may change quickly for planned events 

Webinars:

  • SERIES: BlueTech Global Connect
    • April 21: Autonomous BlueTech Taking on the Dirty, Dangerous and Dull in the Ocean Space
    • May 19: Space Applications
    • June 16: Building a Sustainable Future for our Ports & Harbors
  • SERIES: EMB Third Thursday Science
    • 21 April: Outgoing EMB Young Ambassadors and their research
    • 19 May: Critical research needs for informing environmental management of deep-sea mining

Grants and Funding Opportunities:

Job & Internship Opportunities:

Click here to view the IOOS Association Calendar

Do you have suggestions for new things you would like to see in the Eyes on the Ocean IOOS Bi-Weekly? Contact us at: eoto@noaa.gov.

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