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IOOS^® - EYES ON THE OCEAN^™

From the IOOS Program Office:

• Hailing a new IOOSian: Welcome aboard to Kathy Bailey. She is no stranger to ocean observing and data management as she comes to the IOOS Program from NOAA’s Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services (CO-OPS). At CO-OPS she accomplished much including: data quality control and transitioning of NWLON and PORTS sensors to operations; updating of field maintenance, reconnaissance procedures and siting requirements manuals; and led projects that resulted in the first visibility stations deployed in a PORTS and data products to allow forecasters to view model guidance in AWIPS. She worked with the National Data Buoy Center, who retrieves and QCs CO-OPS meteorological data, and leveraged this partnership to archive the data - the first archival of any CO-OPS data type.  Kathy was also my back-up to the NOAA Observation System Council. Her background is perfect for our continued collaboration across NOAA and acceleration of our data management plans.
• Planning for MTS/IEEE OCEANS’15 Washington, DC: Once again US IOOS will participate in this conference. Doug Wilson is the Technical committee chair and we have met with him. The US IOOS Program Office has secured 2 booths and will be looking for community engagement. We are committed to the ever popular IGNITE session – as we did in Norfolk and have discussed townhall topics – potentially in coordination with the Maritime Alliance based on the Ocean Enterprise study. 

  Abstract submissions are now open and I call on all of you to submit one:  http://www.oceans15mtsieeewashington.org/index.php/program/abstract-submission Abstract submissions will close in late May.

  Contact Doug at: techprogchair@oceans15mtsieeewashington.org.

• IOOS Federal Advisory Committee: Next meeting will be held April 29-30 at COL in Washington, DC.

Observation Subsystem and Sensor Technologies:

• High Frequency Radar/Radio (Lead Jack Harlan, Harlan@noaa.gov):
  • Taiwan announces their network: CONGRATS - Taiwan is the first country to have their entire coast covered with HFR network. Dr Lai, project lead, Taiwan’s Ocean Research Institute, National Applied Research Laboratories, worked with the US based CODAR Ocean Sensing to deploy 17 CODAR SeaSondes. Dr. Lai sent his thanks to CODAR and I also send along my appreciation. On March 10^th they held a national Press Conference. According to Dr. Lai, 21 articles in Mandarin and 2 articles in English reported this great event.   Here are links to the news in English:  http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2015/03/11/2003613297
• Animal Tagging: The Navy has been partnering with Dan Costa’s lab at UC Santa Cruz under the larger IOOS Animal Telemetry Network (ATN) effort. Navy is using data from 6 e-seals that were tagged by Dan’s lab with the data flowing through the Global: Q9900761, Q9900762, Q9900769, Q9900770, Q9900771, and Q9900772.
• Invitation to join the Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) Jubilee in the Northern Gulf of Mexico,13-17 July 2015: The University of Southern Mississippi and the Naval Research Laboratory, together with Rutgers University, are hosting an AUV Jubilee in the northern Gulf of Mexico on 13-17 July, 2015. The mission of the Jubilee is to conduct a coordinated field demonstration of ocean observing technologies focused in the northern Gulf of Mexico. Join in this cooperative effort to coordinate disparate individual ocean research efforts and characterize ocean processes in the Gulf. The Jubliee will also include an educational component aimed at middle school, high school, and community college science teachers. Learn more at http://gcoos.org.

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

(Contact Derrick or Rob to get on the list serve for changes - Derrick.Snowden@noaa.gov, Rob.Ragsdale@noaa.gov):

• DMAC Webinar stream: The latest presentation can be found by clicking on this link.  The brief given by Luke Campbell, from ASA, showed how quality control flags could be represented as binary elements in a netCDF file.  The pros and cons to this approach are being debated.  There are file examples being provided to the RAs to test the advantages and disadvantages.  The results will be discussed next month.

Modeling and Analysis Subsystem:

(IOOS PO and IOOS Coastal and Ocean Modeling Testbed (COMT) POC – Becky Baltes (Becky.Baltes@noaa.gov):

• No update.

Interagency and International Collaboration/News:

• NOAA announces 2015 survey projects: NOAA ships will conduct 14 survey projects, from Maine to Georgia and in the northern U.S. Arctic.
• NOAA’s National Geodetic Survey (NGS) – GPS 2015: NGS kicked off the 2015GPS on Bench Marks Campaign. Anyone in the nation with survey-grade GPS receivers may participate. The program is intended to raise awareness about professional surveying while improving the National Spatial Reference System (NSRS). NGS will use data contributed by surveyors to improve the determination of heights for a wide range of positioning needs, improve the next vertical positioning model, and enable conversions to the new vertical datum in 2022. The NSRS is the coordinate system defined and maintained by NGS to provide latitude, longitude, height, scale, gravity, and orientation for the United States, delivering over $2.4 billion in potential annual benefits to the U.S. economy.

Delivering Benefits:

• GCOOS Celebrates 10 years: The GCOOS-RA held the annual Joint Board and Members Meeting in New Orleans, LA. The agenda included presentations on RESTORE, coordination with Mexico, a 10th Anniversary Celebration for the GCOOS-RA, and much more! Presentations and a meeting report will be available on the GCOOS-RA website (http://www.gcoos.org/) soon. The enthusiasm for what GCOOS is doing was great to see. See Zdenka’s presentation here. Read Zdenka’s top ten for GCOOS in 10 years at http://www.ioos.noaa.gov/ioos_in_action/stories/gcoos_10_years.html.
• QuickLook Posted for Tropical Storm Bavi: CO-OPS’ QuickLook product provides a synopsis of near real­-time oceanographic and meteorological observations at locations affected by a tropical cyclone. Tropical Storm Bavi, which passed over the island of Guam. It’s used by the Weather Service and the media during a storm event. Guam was briefly under a typhoon watch and then a tropical storm warning, and experienced a minor storm surge as the storm passed over. The QuickLook Team was ready and able to post for this rare off­season tropical cyclone!
• Explore Once, Use Many times: For full post go to https://noaacoastsurvey.wordpress.com/2015/03/18/explore-once-use-many-times/. NOAA’s Office for Coast Survey is collaborating with NOAA’s Office of Ocean Exploration to maximize the use of the multi-beam data being collected by NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer.

Congressional

• No update.

Communications / Outreach / Education:

• No update.

Upcoming Meetings with IOOS Participation:

• 2nd GEO_CIEHLYC Water-Cycle Capacity Building Workshop: Colleagues of the GEO community in the Americas. The meeting will take place in Cartagena, Colombia in May 2015. Detailed information can be found here: http://www.earthobservations.org/article.php?id=71. Registration is now open! Register here!
• OTN-hosted International Conference on Fish Telemetry (13-17 July): Registration closes in May. Taking place for the first time in North America, the 3rd ICFT will present the latest aquatic-animal telemetry research under emerging topics like transboundary issues, visualization and modeling, and intelligent open-access data. This year’s conference is hosted by the Ocean Tracking Network and will be held at the World Trade and Convention Centre, Halifax, Canada. Registration is open. Join the mailing listto track ICFT news.
• Gordon Research Conference 2015: IOOS partners – Drs John Wilkin and Ruoying He are the Chair and Vice Chair respectively for the conference “Modeling Coastal Marine Circulation and Physics and the Environmental Processes that They Influence” The conference will take place June 7-12, 2015 at the University of New England, Biddeford, ME. The program is linked at https://www.grc.org/programs.aspx?id=12785. Applications for this meeting must be submitted by May 10, 2015. Please apply early, as some meetings become oversubscribed (full) before this deadline. The Coastal Ocean Modeling Gordon Research Conference will be held in conjunction with the Coastal Ocean Modeling Gordon-Kenan Research Seminar. Those interested in attending both meetings must submit an application for the GKRS in addition to an application for the GRC.

View the IOOS calendar: https://ioosassociation.org/