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:

Hello IOOS Community,

The official start of summer has come and I know many of you will head out to enjoy our Nation’s coasts, lakes, and beaches. I’d like to take a moment to remind everyone to exercise caution with swimming, boating, and enjoying the sun. There are some great resources available here on beach and ocean safety including information on dangerous rip currents, hurricane preparedness, and wave safety. 

I’d like to wish everyone a happy Independence Day as we celebrate the Fourth of July next week. Happy summer!

Best Wishes,
Carl

From the U.S. IOOS Office:

  • Farewell Steve Lockhart: Steve’s last day with the IOOS Office is today. He has accepted a project manager position at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Falmouth, MA working on a project to implement electronic monitoring of the fisheries. We wish Steve fair winds and following seas as he heads out on his next endeavor. Good luck Steve! We will miss you here at IOOS!
  • Acting Operations Division Chief - Tiffany Vance: From June 20 to October 19th, Tiffany Vance will serve as the Acting Operations Divisions Chief for the IOOS Office. Derrick Snowden will attend a month long leadership training at the Federal Executive Institute, followed by a detail with NOS headquarters to work on NOS modeling and observations to support resilience and development of the national HF Radar Program.  
  • IOOS Federal Advisory Committee Update: The Advisory Committee’s Charter has been officially renewed. Planning for the committee’s next virtual and in person meetings is underway. Additional information on these meetings will be shared here and published in the Federal Register Notice.
  • Marking 20 Years of IOOS! We will celebrate 20 years of IOOS in conjunction with the upcoming OceanObs’19 meeting in September in Honolulu, HI. In preparation for this celebration, we want to hear your memories of IOOS.  Has IOOS helped you, were you a part of building the System, or do you have photos, videos, or documents of the last 20 years that you can share with us? Please contact us at eoto@noaa.gov to share your memories or ask for more details on how to share information.

Observation Subsystem and Sensor Technologies:

  • ACT Open Calls for New Technology Evaluations: The Alliance for Coastal Technologies (ACT) currently has two open calls for new technology evaluations. 
    • 1. Accepting preliminary applications from developers and manufacturers of commercially available Total Residual Oxidant (TRO) instruments used to monitor TRO in shipboard ballast water treatment applications.
    • 2. Call for applications from individuals or teams of researchers, and/or sensor developers and manufacturers to participate in a technology demonstration aimed at improving data processing and algorithm development of hyperspectral imagery for research and management applications within shallow freshwater and marine aquatic ecosystems. 
    • Applications for both calls are due by August 31, 2019.
    • For further details please see: http://www.act-us.info/rft.php 

  • Surface Current Mapping: (IOOS PO POC, Derrick Snowden, Derrick.Snowden@noaa.gov):  
    • No update.

  • ATN at 5th International Conference on Fish Telemetry (ICFT) and Ocean Tracking Network (OTN) Symposium: With gracious support from the OTN, Megan Treml will travel to Arendal, Norway to participate in the 5th International Conference on Fish Telemetry (ICFT), June 24-28 as well as be a presenter and panel member at the annual OTN Symposium, June 28-29 at that venue.

    • ATN Asset Inventory of U.S. Satellite and Acoustic Telemetry capabilities and effort: The effort to conduct an asset inventory of U.S. satellite and acoustic telemetry capabilities is underway. Response to our google questionnaires have been very good. We will assess the status of returns in early July and map out our strategy and timing for completion.

 

    • ATN Contributes to Animal Telemetry Article Published by Frontiers Marine Science Journal: The U.S. Animal Telemetry Network (ATN) was among the many community members who participated in the preparation of the article "Animal-Borne Telemetry: an integral component of the ocean observing toolkit” (authored by Rob Harcourt et al., Front. Mar. Sci., 26 June 2019 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2019.00326). The article was recently published in Frontiers in Marine Science as part of the research topic: Oceanobs 19: An Ocean of Opportunity.

Data Management and Communications (DMAC) Subsystem and Tools Built on IOOS data (DMAC listserv – contact Micah Wengren, DMAC System Architect, data.ioos@noaa.gov)

  • IOOS DMAC 2019 Code Sprint - Registration Open: IOOS is pleased to announce the IOOS DMAC 2019 Code Sprint registration is now available.  The Code Sprint will be held Tuesday Oct 8 - Thursday Oct 10 at the Cahoots (https://beincahoots.com/) coworking space in downtown Ann Arbor, MI.  IOOS RA DMAC personnel, IOOS partners, and anyone interested in collaborating on furthering the DMAC software ecosystem is encouraged to register. Registration will be open until July 5.  We expect to be able to cover full travel costs for IOOS grantees.
  • IOOS Attends Amazon Web Services Public Sector Summit: Micah Wengren, IOOS PO attended the AWS Public Sector Summit in DC on June 11 and 12.  The Public Sector Summit is AWS’ premier event for Federal Government, State, and other public sector clients.  Featured at the event this year was a talk by USGS’ Rich Signell on distributed scientific computing on AWS with the Pangeo project, and the ESIP Lab program that funds micro-grants for early-stage innovative approaches to scientific data management and analysis projects, often leveraging ESIP’s AWS resources and workspace.   Also notable for IOOS and NOAA modeling efforts is AWS’ recently released Elastic Fabric Adaptor, a low-latency network adaptor that can provide up to 100 Gbps network bandwidth. From the EFA webpage, ‘With EFA, HPC applications using popular HPC technologies like Message Passing Interface (MPI) can scale to thousands of CPU cores. EFA supports industry-standard libfabric APIs, so applications that use a supported MPI library can be migrated to AWS with little or no modification.’

  • QARTOD (National Coordinator Mark Bushnell, mark.bushnell@noaa.gov):

    • Core variables: We’re creating a document that details the status of real-time QC for the 34 IOOS core variables. While many manuals exist, there are some variables which may not require real-time QC or lack interoperable data. We’re seeking your thoughts, please send us a short note regarding the suitability of real-time QC for your favorite variable.

    • Ocean Best Practice System update: The first video has been deposited into the repository - a tutorial by Dr. Rich Signell, titled Using ERDDAP to access tabular data. It’s been assigned DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.25607/OBP-493, and in just two weeks it’s been viewed over 200 times. The OBPS working group is pleased to see this capability demonstrated, and thanks Rich for the video tutorial.

(IOOS PO and IOOS Coastal and Ocean Modeling Testbed (COMT) POC –Tiffany Vance, Tiffany.C.Vance@noaa.gov):   

  • Perspective from the IOOS Office - NOS Coastal Modeling Portfolio Manager: The NOS Coastal Modeling Portfolio Manager is a newly-created position that sits within the U.S. IOOS® Program Office, but serves all coastal modeling interests across the National Ocean Service. More specifically, the position entails requirements management, customer and stakeholder outreach, and coordinating across various modeling groups within NOS and NOAA and with the external coastal modeling community. The position has been filled by two different employees from the CO-OPS office serving on a detail to the IOOS Office, Christina Urizar and Aijun Zhang. Their focus has been to document and build the framework or tools the NOS team needs to collaborate better and work more effectively.  One example is the creation of a NOS Coastal Modeling project environment within the NOAA Virtual Laboratory (VLab). We now have VLab tools for inputting, validating and prioritizing coastal modeling requirements, and a tool for the portfolio management of all coastal modeling projects. They have also been involved in managing the IOOS® Coastal and Ocean Modeling Testbed (COMT). This “wet” testbed provides grant funding to scientists to develop and transition new models or modeling capabilities to NOAA and the greater scientific modeling community. Throughout their detail experiences, Christina and Aijun have coordinated and worked with various management and development teams within NOAA on many coastal modeling issues and projects. It is clear that coastal modeling is critical to supporting a diverse set of missions and NOAA strategic priorities, such as the NOAA Water Initiative, NOAA Unified Forecast System, Precision Navigation, and cloud computing. For more information, please contact Cristina.Urizar@noaa.gov and Aijun.Zhang@noaa.gov.
  • Request for Information from Industry on NOAA’s Earth Prediction Innovation Center (EPIC): The NOAA is seeking to gather ideas, recommendations, and best practices from industry on how to develop, meet the goals of and support a virtual Earth Prediction Innovation Center (EPIC). EPIC seeks to create a true community earth system model that is accessible to the public and utilizes innovative strategies to host and manage the modeling system. EPIC will leverage existing NOAA resources to accelerate advances to the Unified Forecast System, a community-based, coupled Earth system model designed to meet NOAA's operational forecast mission to protect life and property and improve economic growth.The Request for Information (RFI) is posted on FedBizOps requesting community opinions on NOAAs strategy and vision and is open until July 10th.
  • COMT Annual Meeting: The COMT Annual Meeting will be held October 22-34rd in Silver Spring, MD. More details coming soon.

Interagency and International Collaboration/News:

  • Marine Biodiversity Observation Network (MBON) (IOOS PO POC Gabrielle Canonico, Gabrielle.Canonico@noaa.gov):
    • No update.

       

  • OceanObs’19 Updates and Planning: 
    • OceanObs’19: Registration Is Open! For more information on fees, deadlines, posters, and event registration, visit here. 
  • Save the date: Ocean Obs RCN Annual Meeting - February 16, 2020, San Diego, CA: The Ocean Obs Research Coordination Network (RCN) will host an OceanObs’19 Conference follow-up meeting on February 16, 2020, in San Diego, CA, immediately preceding the AGU/TOS Ocean Sciences Meeting (https://www.agu.org). The OceanObs’19 Conference (Hawaii 16-21 September, 2019; https://council.science/events/oceanobs-19/) will be the third conference of this series, held once every ten years. The Ocean Obs RCN annual meeting on 16 February 2020 will be dedicated to the synthesis of threads and recommendations emerging from the OceanObs’19 Conference. Of particular interest will be focusing the community on the planning for the implementation of initiatives emerging from OceanObs’19. The meeting will advance links between observation networks and operational users to facilitate the delivery of critical information to stakeholders, and to address critical policy issues that require multidisciplinary ocean observing systems. 
  • US Ocean Economy Satellite Account: A Request for Information (RFI) for the first US Ocean Economy Satellite Account (OESA) has now been published on the Federal Register. The OESA is produced by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) in partnership with NOAA to measure the contribution of ocean-based industries to the US GDP. The purpose of the RFI is to solicit input on the approach and definitions used. The general public and industry members can provide input by July 7. This information will be used to improve our  measurements. Any questions or comments regarding the RFI can be directed to OceanEconomy@noaa.gov.
  • NOAA Hydrographic Services Review Panel (HSRP) Meeting - August 27-29, 2019, New Orleans, LA: The next NOAA HSRP public meeting will be held in New Orleans, LA August 27-29. For more information and to see a draft agenda, please see: https://www.nauticalcharts.noaa.gov/hsrp/meeting-new-orleans-2019.htm 
  • NGS Assists Researchers at the Rice Rivers Center: NGS personnel provided site-specific information to researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University’s Rice Rivers Center, on the James River, just east of Richmond, VA. The Center is a field station devoted to environmental research, teaching, and public service, and is the most recent site to be adopted into Chesapeake Bay Sentinel Site Cooperative. Researchers there are establishing a long-term monitoring effort at the site, with sensors such as Sedimentation Erosion Tables and water level stations located in a series of tidal freshwater habitats, including a wetland and tidal forest sites. NGS personnel provided guidelines, models, and tools appropriate to furnish highly accurate and precise height information for the Center’s monitoring sensors. For more information, contact kendall.fancher@noaa.gov, 540-376-6535
  • World Hydrography Day - June 21st: What is hydrography? Hydrography is the science that measures and describes the physical features of the navigable portion of the Earth's surface and adjoining coastal areas. Hydrographic surveyors study these bodies of water to see what the "floor" looks like. NOAA's Office of Coast Survey conducts hydrographic surveys to measure the depth and bottom configuration of water bodies. That data is used to update nautical charts and develop hydrographic models. This information is vital to navigating the ocean and our nation's waterways. Hydrographical surveys are also used in NOAA's Integrated Ocean and Coast Mapping program, providing information for a number of purposes, including seafloor structural construction, laying pipelines and cables, dredging, anchoring and understanding fish habitats. Learn more about hydrography here and check out a new infographic here: https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/hydrography.html
  • CO-OPS Updating Great Lakes Water Level References in Buffalo, New York: Due to the movement of Earth’s crust, the elevation reference system used to define water levels within the St. Lawrence River and Seaway system must be adjusted periodically. To prepare for the 2020 International Great Lakes Datum update, Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services (CO-OPS) field crews traveled to Buffalo, New York, to survey water level stations in the area. Over the course of three days, two crews worked together to complete four surveys and set five new benchmarks, representing over 260 feet of total elevation change. Contact: Albert.Sanford@noaa.gov
  • Group on Earth Observations (GEO) Sustainable Development Goals (SGD) Awards - Nomination Period Closes June 30: Don’t miss the opportunity to submit a nomination for an award as part of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) ‘Earth Observations for Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)’ Awards. Winners will be recognized at the GEO Week 2019 in Canberra, Australia. 
    • Sectoral categories: GEO Member Countries, GEO Participating Organizations, SDG Custodian Agencies, GEO Work Programme Elements, Not-for-profit organizations, and Academia. 
    • Special categories: Innovation, Testimonial/ Example, and Statistical-Geospatial Data Integration. Submissions related to endeavors through collaborative efforts are strongly encouraged.
    • Who is eligible to be nominated? All UN Member Countries that are working with GEO, GEO Participating Organizations (POs), SDG custodian agencies, GEO Work Programme Activities, Non-Profit Organizations, and Academic Institutions are eligible for nomination. 
    • Who can nominate? Anyone from the extended GEO community can submit a nomination.
    • Award Categories: Nominations for consideration can be submitted under sectoral and special categories. 
    • Nomination Submission Deadline: June 30, 2019

       

  • TPOS2020 Second Report Released: The Second Report has been released as of May 2019. The Executive Summary is currently available in English; translated versions will be posted when they are available. It will be translated into Chinese, French, Japanese, Korean and Spanish. The Second Report builds off the First Report; it covers new areas of review, expands on areas that were not adequately covered in the First Report and provides additional detail of the Backbone observing system. Progress with implementation and the pathway to bring new technology into the Backbone are also discussed.
  • Grants & Funding Opportunities
    • DARPA BAA: This new BAA invites proposers to submit innovative basic or applied research concepts in the following technical domains: Frontiers in Math, Computation & Design; Limits of Sensing & Sensors; Complex Social Systems; Anticipating Surprise. The research topics of interest within each domain are described in the BAA. 

Delivering the Benefits:

  • Citizen Science makes strides for Shell Day: Shell Day is proof positive that you don’t need a science degree to be a scientist. On August 22nd, citizen scientists from Downeast Maine to Long Island Sound will undertake a one-day monitoring blitz to gather data on the acidity of coastal waters. Read more about this effort (and see NERACOOS' latest newsletter) here. 
  • GCOOS Offers Hurricane Tracker: Check out GCOOS's real-time hurricane tracking system for the latest information to monitor the strength and movement of tropical systems and how to prepare if a storm is heading toward your home. Users can access the current location, intensity and movement of tropical systems, latest predictions, local emergency contacts and guidance for storm preparations including a live weather related twitter feed. 
  • May 2019 California HAB Bulletin Now Available: The latest monthly edition of the California HAB bulletin is now available here http://sccoos.org/california-hab-bulletin/california-hab-bulletin-may-2019/. The purpose of this experimental product is to give the public and resource managers a quick outlook of recent toxic (marine) algal blooms in coastal California from models and aggregate data sets. Monthly to bi-monthly reports will synthesize model output, near real-time observations, and public health alerts to provide a more complete picture of the regional variability in harmful algal blooms.
  • GLOS Senior Technical Advisor Shows Early Warning System prototype at IAGLR Conference: At IAGLR last week, Tim Kerns, GLOS senior technical advisor, presented a prototype system that takes data from a sensor, sends it to the cloud, and automatically texts an alert if a certain parameter exceeds a limit (in this case turbidity). During the demo, as Tim moved the sensor from the clear water to the murky, the turbidity spiked, and a text alert with a link to the displayed info arrived on his iPhone. This prototype proves one technical piece of an early warning system for Lake Erie, a project GLOS is leading through a IOOS OTT program grant. Partners include NOAA GLERL and NCCOS, CIGLR, Ohio State University, LimnoTech, and Cleveland Water Alliance. Read more here.
  • Boating Season is Here: Visit the NANOOS NVS Boaters App when planning your next trip. Based on user feedback, the web-based application has been recently updated to now include river height and discharge from USGS river gauges, tide gauges in Canada, and more observing assets in the Columbia River. Other features include: near-real time weather and sea conditions; current, wind, wave and weather forecasts; tide forecasts and water level plots; nearshore surface currents from HF radar; marina location, contact information and interactive satellite images of the dock; rand outing capabilities and NOAA nautical charts. If you know of a group who would like a Boaters App presentation, please contact Rachel Wold at rwold@uw.edu.

Congressional:

  • No update.

Communications/Outreach/Education:

  • OceanObs '19 White Papers on Cloud Workflows; Tailored Data Products: Two new white papers have been published in Frontiers in Marine Science ahead of OceanObs '19 in September.  "From the Oceans to the Cloud: Opportunities and Challenges for Data, Models, Computation and Workflows" and "Meeting Regional, Coastal and Ocean User Needs With Tailored Data Products: A Stakeholder-Driven Process"
  • HFR in the Great Lakes, what's that doing?: High frequency radar means real-time surface current data in the Straits of Mackinac -- the first technology of this kind in the Great Lakes! Testing is underway and you can learn about the technology from Michigan Technological University researcher Lorelle Meadows here. 
  • Coastal conservation and security workshop: On June 19, 2019 CARICOOS played a role on the workshop “Coastal Conservation and Security” at the Pedalea store in Isabela. CARICOOS products and services were presented to a group of stakeholders that included representation from professional rescue organizations like SVERI Rescate Isabela and Coastal Professional Rescue Team.  Read more here. 
  • Margaret A. Davidson Graduate Fellowship - Call for Applications: NOAA’s Office for Coastal Management is pleased to announce that the federal funding opportunity (FFO) for the Margaret A. Davidson Graduate Fellowship has been published. This new program will offer graduate students admitted to or enrolled in a Master’s or Ph.D. program the opportunity to conduct estuarine research within a National Estuarine Research Reserve. One fellowship will be offered at each of the 29 reserves in the national system. Fellows will focus their research on key reserve management questions. Each 2-year project will employ the tenets of collaborative research, including engaging end-users, incorporating multi-disciplinary perspectives, and ensuring outcomes are applicable to local management needs and decision-making. A strong emphasis will be placed on mentoring the fellows at a local and national level, as well as providing professional development opportunities to build the next generation of coastal professionals. Preliminary information about the new program and a link to the FFO is posted at  coast.noaa.gov/nerrs/research/davidson-fellowship.html.
  • GCOOS Accepting Applications for First Howard Scholarship Fund Award: The awardee will receive registration and travel support (a maximum of $1,500) to give an ocean data-related presentation at either the American Geophysical Union Meeting or 2020 Ocean Sciences Meeting. Applicants must be from a GCOOS-member institution and be pursuing undergraduate, graduate or post-doctoral work that includes a strong element of collaboration.  Deadline extended to 7/31/2019. For details and application, click here.
  • CoastView Articles on NANOOS NVS Beach App: NANOOS and science education non-profit CoastView have collaborated to provide access to stories and pictures promoting exploration of the Pacific Northwest coast. Find the CoastView articles on the NVS Beach View application by clicking on the tab “Articles”. New articles are posted every Tuesday that focus on the Washington and Oregon coasts.
  • IOOS Enterprise in the News:

 

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? Talk to us: eoto@noaa.gov!