ALBERT

Description: Dataset: CTD Biogenic Silica

Description: Biogenic silica concentrations collected from CTD casts during RVIB Nathaniel B. Palmer cruise in the Ross Sea, Southern Ocean from 2017-2018 For a complete list of measurements, refer to the full dataset description in the supplemental file 'Dataset_description.pdf'. The most current version of this dataset is available at: https://www.bco-dmo.org/dataset/780191

Description: NSF Office of Polar Programs (formerly NSF PLR) (NSF OPP) OPP-1644073

Description: Dataset: NBP1608 TMs: stations

Description: Dissolved trace metal concentrations from depth profiles during RVIB Nathaniel B. Palmer cruise NBP16-08 in the Southern Ocean from 2016-09-11 to 2016-10-10. For a complete list of measurements, refer to the full dataset description in the supplemental file 'Dataset_description.pdf'. The most current version of this dataset is available at: https://www.bco-dmo.org/dataset/781773

Description: NSF Office of Polar Programs (formerly NSF PLR) (NSF OPP) OPP-1443483, NSF Office of Polar Programs (formerly NSF PLR) (NSF OPP) OPP-1443474, NSF Office of Polar Programs (formerly NSF PLR) (NSF OPP) OPP-1443646

Description: 2020-06-01

Description: Dataset: Pigments HPLC

Description: Algal pigment concentrations as measured by HPLC from RVIB Nathaniel B. Palmer cruise in the Ross Sea, Southern Ocean from 2017-2018. For a complete list of measurements, refer to the full dataset description in the supplemental file 'Dataset_description.pdf'. The most current version of this dataset is available at: https://www.bco-dmo.org/dataset/778881

Description: NSF Office of Polar Programs (formerly NSF PLR) (NSF OPP) OPP-1644073

Description: © The Author(s), 2019. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Newman, L., Heil, P., Trebilco, R., Katsumata, K., Constable, A., van Wijk, E., Assmann, K., Beja, J., Bricher, P., Colemans, R., Costa, D., Diggs, S., Farneti, R., Fawcett, S., Gille, S. T., Hendry, K. R., Henley, S., Hofmann, E., Maksym, T., MazIoff, M., Meijers, A., Meredith, M. M., Moreau, S., Ozsor, B., Robertson, R., Schloss, I., Schofield, O., Shi, J., Sikes, E., Smith, I. J., Swart, S., Wahlin, A., Williams, G., Williams, M. J. M., Herraiz-Borreguero, L., Kern, S., Liesers, J., Massom, R. A., Melbourne-Thomas, J., Miloslavich, P., & Spreen, G. Delivering sustained, coordinated, and integrated observations of the Southern Ocean for global impact. Frontiers in Marine Science, 6, (2019): 433, doi:10.3389/fmars.2019.00433.

Description: The Southern Ocean is disproportionately important in its effect on the Earth system, impacting climatic, biogeochemical, and ecological systems, which makes recent observed changes to this system cause for global concern. The enhanced understanding and improvements in predictive skill needed for understanding and projecting future states of the Southern Ocean require sustained observations. Over the last decade, the Southern Ocean Observing System (SOOS) has established networks for enhancing regional coordination and research community groups to advance development of observing system capabilities. These networks support delivery of the SOOS 20-year vision, which is to develop a circumpolar system that ensures time series of key variables, and delivers the greatest impact from data to all key end-users. Although the Southern Ocean remains one of the least-observed ocean regions, enhanced international coordination and advances in autonomous platforms have resulted in progress toward sustained observations of this region. Since 2009, the Southern Ocean community has deployed over 5700 observational platforms south of 40°S. Large-scale, multi-year or sustained, multidisciplinary efforts have been supported and are now delivering observations of essential variables at space and time scales that enable assessment of changes being observed in Southern Ocean systems. The improved observational coverage, however, is predominantly for the open ocean, encompasses the summer, consists of primarily physical oceanographic variables, and covers surface to 2000 m. Significant gaps remain in observations of the ice-impacted ocean, the sea ice, depths 〉2000 m, the air-ocean-ice interface, biogeochemical and biological variables, and for seasons other than summer. Addressing these data gaps in a sustained way requires parallel advances in coordination networks, cyberinfrastructure and data management tools, observational platform and sensor technology, two-way platform interrogation and data-transmission technologies, modeling frameworks, intercalibration experiments, and development of internationally agreed sampling standards and requirements of key variables. This paper presents a community statement on the major scientific and observational progress of the last decade, and importantly, an assessment of key priorities for the coming decade, toward achieving the SOOS vision and delivering essential data to all end-users.

Description: PH was supported by the Australian Government’s Cooperative Research Centers Program through the Antarctica Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre, and the International Space Science Institute’s team grant #406. This work contributes to the Australian Antarctica Science projects 4301 and 4390.

Description: © The Author(s), 2019. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Goni, G. J., Sprintall, J., Bringas, F., Cheng, L., Cirano, M., Dong, S., Domingues, R., Goes, M., Lopez, H., Morrow, R., Rivero, U., Rossby, T., Todd, R. E., Trinanes, J., Zilberman, N., Baringer, M., Boyer, T., Cowley, R., Domingues, C. M., Hutchinson, K., Kramp, M., Mata, M. M., Reseghetti, F., Sun, C., Bhaskar, U., & Volko, D. More than 50 years of successful continuous temperature section measurements by the global expendable bathythermograph network, its integrability, societal benefits, and future. Frontiers in Marine Science, 6, (2019): 452, doi:10.3389/fmars.2019.00452.

Description: The first eXpendable BathyThermographs (XBTs) were deployed in the 1960s in the North Atlantic Ocean. In 1967 XBTs were deployed in operational mode to provide a continuous record of temperature profile data along repeated transects, now known as the Global XBT Network. The current network is designed to monitor ocean circulation and boundary current variability, basin-wide and trans-basin ocean heat transport, and global and regional heat content. The ability of the XBT Network to systematically map the upper ocean thermal field in multiple basins with repeated trans-basin sections at eddy-resolving scales remains unmatched today and cannot be reproduced at present by any other observing platform. Some repeated XBT transects have now been continuously occupied for more than 30 years, providing an unprecedented long-term climate record of temperature, and geostrophic velocity profiles that are used to understand variability in ocean heat content (OHC), sea level change, and meridional ocean heat transport. Here, we present key scientific advances in understanding the changing ocean and climate system supported by XBT observations. Improvement in XBT data quality and its impact on computations, particularly of OHC, are presented. Technology development for probes, launchers, and transmission techniques are also discussed. Finally, we offer new perspectives for the future of the Global XBT Network.

Description: GG, FB, SD, UR, MB, RD, and DV were supported by a grant from the NOAA/Ocean Observing and Monitoring Division (OOMD) and by NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML). The participation of JS and NZ in this study was supported by NOAA's Global Ocean Monitoring and Observing Program through Award NA15OAR4320071 and NSF Award 1542902. CD was funded by the Australian Research Council (FT130101532 and DP160103130); the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR) Working Group 148, funded by national SCOR committees and a grant to SCOR from the U.S. National Science Foundation (Grant OCE-1546580); and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO/International Oceanographic Data and Information Exchange (IOC/IODE) IQuOD Steering Group. LC was supported by 2016YFC1401800.

Description: © The Author(s), 2019. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Speich, S., Lee, T., Muller-Karger, F., Lorenzoni, L., Pascual, A., Jin, D., Delory, E., Reverdin, G., Siddorn, J., Lewis, M. R., Marba, N., Buttigieg, P. L., Chiba, S., Manley, J., Kabo-Bah, A. T., Desai, K., & Ackerman, A. Editorial: Oceanobs19: An ocean of opportunity. Frontiers in Marine Science, 6, (2019): 570, doi:10.3389/fmars.2019.00570.

Description: The OceanObs conferences are held once every 10 years for the scientific, technical, and operational communities involved in the planning, implementation, and use of ocean observing systems. They serve to communicate progress, promote plans, and to define advances in ocean observing in response to societies' needs. Each conference provides a forum for the community to review the state of the ocean observing science and operations, and to define goals and plans to achieve over the next decade.

Description: The organizers of the OceanObs'19 conference thank the authors that conceived and jointly crafted the Community White Papers for their tremendous efforts, extensive international collaborations, and community wisdom. The organizers also thank the hundreds of reviewers of the CWPs for their dedication, and the time invested in reviewing the papers. The organizers of the OceanObs'19 conference wish to thank the chief editor of the journal, Dr. Carlos Duarte, and the Frontiers Marine Science staff, for their professionalism and support in this process.

Description: © The Author(s), 2019. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Meyssignac, B., Boyer, T., Zhao, Z., Hakuba, M. Z., Landerer, F. W., Stammer, D., Koehl, A., Kato, S., L'Ecuyer, T., Ablain, M., Abraham, J. P., Blazquez, A., Cazenave, A., Church, J. A., Cowley, R., Cheng, L., Domingues, C. M., Giglio, D., Gouretski, V., Ishii, M., Johnson, G. C., Killick, R. E., Legler, D., Llovel, W., Lyman, J., Palmer, M. D., Piotrowicz, S., Purkey, S. G., Roemmich, D., Roca, R., Savita, A., von Schuckmann, K., Speich, S., Stephens, G., Wang, G., Wijffels, S. E., & Zilberman, N. Measuring global ocean heat content to estimate the Earth energy Imbalance. Frontiers in Marine Science, 6, (2019): 432, doi: 10.3389/fmars.2019.00432.

Description: The energy radiated by the Earth toward space does not compensate the incoming radiation from the Sun leading to a small positive energy imbalance at the top of the atmosphere (0.4–1 Wm–2). This imbalance is coined Earth’s Energy Imbalance (EEI). It is mostly caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and is driving the current warming of the planet. Precise monitoring of EEI is critical to assess the current status of climate change and the future evolution of climate. But the monitoring of EEI is challenging as EEI is two orders of magnitude smaller than the radiation fluxes in and out of the Earth system. Over 93% of the excess energy that is gained by the Earth in response to the positive EEI accumulates into the ocean in the form of heat. This accumulation of heat can be tracked with the ocean observing system such that today, the monitoring of Ocean Heat Content (OHC) and its long-term change provide the most efficient approach to estimate EEI. In this community paper we review the current four state-of-the-art methods to estimate global OHC changes and evaluate their relevance to derive EEI estimates on different time scales. These four methods make use of: (1) direct observations of in situ temperature; (2) satellite-based measurements of the ocean surface net heat fluxes; (3) satellite-based estimates of the thermal expansion of the ocean and (4) ocean reanalyses that assimilate observations from both satellite and in situ instruments. For each method we review the potential and the uncertainty of the method to estimate global OHC changes. We also analyze gaps in the current capability of each method and identify ways of progress for the future to fulfill the requirements of EEI monitoring. Achieving the observation of EEI with sufficient accuracy will depend on merging the remote sensing techniques with in situ measurements of key variables as an integral part of the Ocean Observing System.

Description: GJ was supported by the NOAA Research. MP and RK were supported by the Met Office Hadley Centre Climate Programme funded by BEIS and Defra. JC was partially supported by the Centre for Southern Hemisphere Oceans Research, a joint research centre between QNLM and CSIRO. CD and AS were funded by the Australian Research Council (FT130101532 and DP160103130) and its Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes (CLEX). IQuOD team members (TB, RC, LC, CD, VG, MI, MP, and SW) were supported by the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR) Working Group 148, funded by the National SCOR Committees and a grant to SCOR from the U.S. National Science Foundation (Grant OCE-1546580), as well as the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO/International Oceanographic Data and Information Exchange (IOC/IODE) IQuOD Steering Group. ZZ was supported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NNX17AH14G). LC was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2017YFA0603200 and 2016YFC1401800).

Description: © The Author(s), 2019. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in [citation], doi:[doi]. Swart, S., Gille, S. T., Delille, B., Josey, S., Mazloff, M., Newman, L., Thompson, A. F., Thomson, J., Ward, B., du Plessis, M. D., Kent, E. C., Girton, J., Gregor, L., Heil, P., Hyder, P., Pezzi, L. P., de Souza, R. B., Tamsitt, V., Weller, R. A., & Zappa, C. J. Constraining Southern Ocean air-sea-ice fluxes through enhanced observations. Frontiers in Marine Science, 6, (2019): 421, doi:10.3389/fmars.2019.00421.

Description: Air-sea and air-sea-ice fluxes in the Southern Ocean play a critical role in global climate through their impact on the overturning circulation and oceanic heat and carbon uptake. The challenging conditions in the Southern Ocean have led to sparse spatial and temporal coverage of observations. This has led to a “knowledge gap” that increases uncertainty in atmosphere and ocean dynamics and boundary-layer thermodynamic processes, impeding improvements in weather and climate models. Improvements will require both process-based research to understand the mechanisms governing air-sea exchange and a significant expansion of the observing system. This will improve flux parameterizations and reduce uncertainty associated with bulk formulae and satellite observations. Improved estimates spanning the full Southern Ocean will need to take advantage of ships, surface moorings, and the growing capabilities of autonomous platforms with robust and miniaturized sensors. A key challenge is to identify observing system sampling requirements. This requires models, Observing System Simulation Experiments (OSSEs), and assessments of the specific spatial-temporal accuracy and resolution required for priority science and assessment of observational uncertainties of the mean state and direct flux measurements. Year-round, high-quality, quasi-continuous in situ flux measurements and observations of extreme events are needed to validate, improve and characterize uncertainties in blended reanalysis products and satellite data as well as to improve parameterizations. Building a robust observing system will require community consensus on observational methodologies, observational priorities, and effective strategies for data management and discovery.

Description: SS was funded by a Wallenberg Academy Fellowship (WAF 2015.0186). EK was funded by the NERC ORCHESTRA Project (NE/N018095/1). LP was funded by the Advanced Studies in Oceanography of Medium and High Latitudes (CAPES 23038.004304/2014-28) and the Research Productivity Program (CNPq 304009/2016-4). BdS was a research associate at the F.R.S-FNRS. PeH was supported by the Australian Antarctic Science Projects 4301 and 4390, and the Australian Government’s Cooperative Research Centres Programme through the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre and the International Space Science Institute Project 406. SG and MM were funded by National Science Foundation awards OCE-1658001 and PLR-1425989. AT was supported by NASA (NNX15AG42G) and NSF (OCE-1756956).

Description: © The Author(s), 2019. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Domingues, R., Kuwano-Yoshida, A., Chardon-Maldonado, P., Todd, R. E., Halliwell, G., Kim, H., Lin, I., Sato, K., Narazaki, T., Shay, L. K., Miles, T., Glenn, S., Zhang, J. A., Jayne, S. R., Centurioni, L., Le Henaff, M., Foltz, G. R., Bringas, F., Ali, M. M., DiMarco, S. F., Hosoda, S., Fukuoka, T., LaCour, B., Mehra, A., Sanabia, E. R., Gyakum, J. R., Dong, J., Knaff, J. A., & Goni, G. Ocean observations in support of studies and forecasts of tropical and extratropical cyclones. Frontiers in Marine Science, 6, (2019): 446, doi:10.3389/fmars.2019.00446.

Description: Over the past decade, measurements from the climate-oriented ocean observing system have been key to advancing the understanding of extreme weather events that originate and intensify over the ocean, such as tropical cyclones (TCs) and extratropical bomb cyclones (ECs). In order to foster further advancements to predict and better understand these extreme weather events, a need for a dedicated observing system component specifically to support studies and forecasts of TCs and ECs has been identified, but such a system has not yet been implemented. New technologies, pilot networks, targeted deployments of instruments, and state-of-the art coupled numerical models have enabled advances in research and forecast capabilities and illustrate a potential framework for future development. Here, applications and key results made possible by the different ocean observing efforts in support of studies and forecasts of TCs and ECs, as well as recent advances in observing technologies and strategies are reviewed. Then a vision and specific recommendations for the next decade are discussed.

Description: This study was supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and JSPS KAKENHI (Grant Numbers: JP17K19093, JP16K12591, and JP16H01846).

Description: © The Author(s), 2019. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Pearlman, J., Bushnell, M., Coppola, L., Karstensen, J., Buttigieg, P. L., Pearlman, F., Simpsons, P., Barbier, M., Muller-Karger, F. E., Munoz-Mas, C., Pissierssens, P., Chandler, C., Hermes, J., Heslop, E., Jenkyns, R., Achterberg, E. P., Bensi, M., Bittig, H. C., Blandin, J., Bosch, J., Bourles, B., Bozzano, R., Buck, J. J. H., Burger, E. F., Cano, D., Cardin, V., Llorens, M. C., Cianca, A., Chen, H., Cusack, C., Delory, E., Garello, R., Giovanetti, G., Harscoat, V., Hartman, S., Heitsenrether, R., Jirka, S., Lara-Lopez, A., Lanteri, N., Leadbetter, A., Manzella, G., Maso, J., McCurdy, A., Moussat, E., Ntoumas, M., Pensieri, S., Petihakis, G., Pinardi, N., Pouliquen, S., Przeslawski, R., Roden, N. P., Silke, J., Tamburri, M. N., Tang, H., Tanhua, T., Telszewski, M., Testor, P., Thomas, J., Waldmann, C., & Whoriskey, F. Evolving and sustaining ocean best practices and standards for the next decade. Frontiers in Marine Science, 6, (2019):277, doi:10.3389/fmars.2019.00277.

Description: The oceans play a key role in global issues such as climate change, food security, and human health. Given their vast dimensions and internal complexity, efficient monitoring and predicting of the planet’s ocean must be a collaborative effort of both regional and global scale. A first and foremost requirement for such collaborative ocean observing is the need to follow well-defined and reproducible methods across activities: from strategies for structuring observing systems, sensor deployment and usage, and the generation of data and information products, to ethical and governance aspects when executing ocean observing. To meet the urgent, planet-wide challenges we face, methods across all aspects of ocean observing should be broadly adopted by the ocean community and, where appropriate, should evolve into “Ocean Best Practices.” While many groups have created best practices, they are scattered across the Web or buried in local repositories and many have yet to be digitized. To reduce this fragmentation, we introduce a new open access, permanent, digital repository of best practices documentation (oceanbestpractices.org) that is part of the Ocean Best Practices System (OBPS). The new OBPS provides an opportunity space for the centralized and coordinated improvement of ocean observing methods. The OBPS repository employs user-friendly software to significantly improve discovery and access to methods. The software includes advanced semantic technologies for search capabilities to enhance repository operations. In addition to the repository, the OBPS also includes a peer reviewed journal research topic, a forum for community discussion and a training activity for use of best practices. Together, these components serve to realize a core objective of the OBPS, which is to enable the ocean community to create superior methods for every activity in ocean observing from research to operations to applications that are agreed upon and broadly adopted across communities. Using selected ocean observing examples, we show how the OBPS supports this objective. This paper lays out a future vision of ocean best practices and how OBPS will contribute to improving ocean observing in the decade to come.

Description: The Ocean Best Practices project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program under grant agreement no: 633211 (AtlantOS), no. 730960 (SeaDataCloud) and no: 654310 (ODIP). Funding was also received from the NSF OceanObs Research Coordination Network under NSF grant 1143683. The Best Practices Handbook for fixed observatories has been funded by the FixO3 project financed by the European Commission through the Seventh Framework Programme for Research, grant agreement no. 312463. The Harmful Algal Blooms Forecast Report was funded by the Interreg Atlantic Area Operational Programme Project PRIMROSE (Grant Agreement No. EAPA_182/2016), and the AtlantOS project (see above). PB acknowledges funding from the Helmholtz Programme Frontiers in Arctic Marine Monitoring (FRAM) conducted by the Alfred-Wegener-Institut. JM acknowledges fundng from the WeObserve project under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program (grant agreement no. 776740). MTe acknowledges support from the US National Science Foundation grant OCE-1840868 to the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR, US) FM-K acknowledges support by NSF Grant 1728913 ‘OceanObS Research Coordination Network’. Funding was also provided by NASA grant NNX14AP62A ‘National Marine Sanctuaries as Sentinel Sites for a Demonstration Marine Biodiversity Observation Network (MBON)’ funded under the National Ocean Partnership Program (NOPP RFP NOAA-NOS-IOOS-2014-2003803 in partnership between NOAA, BOEM, and NASA), and the U.S. Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) Program Office.

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research-Oceans 124(7), (2019): 4605-4617, doi: 10.1029/2018JC014928.

Description: We report the significant impact of near‐inertial waves (NIWs) on vertical mixing and air‐sea carbon dioxide (CO2) fluxes in the Southern Ocean using a biogeochemical model coupled to an eddy‐rich ocean circulation model. The effects of high‐frequency processes are quantified by comparing the fully coupled solution (ONLINE) to two offline simulations based on 5‐day‐averaged output of the ONLINE simulation: one that uses vertical mixing archived from the ONLINE model (CTRL) and another in which vertical mixing is recomputed from the 5‐day average hydrodynamic fields (5dAVG). In this latter simulation, processes with temporal variabilities of a few days including NIWs are excluded in the biogeochemical simulation. Suppression of these processes reduces vertical shear and vertical mixing in the upper ocean, leading to decreased supply of carbon‐rich water from below, less CO2 outgassing in austral winter, and more uptake in summer. The net change amounts up to one third of the seasonal variability in Southern Ocean CO2 flux. Our results clearly demonstrate the importance of resolving high‐frequency processes such as NIWs to better estimate the carbon cycle in numerical model simulations.

Description: The MITgcm can be obtained from http://mitgcm.org website. Resources supporting this work were provided by the NASA High‐End Computing (HEC) Program through the NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) Division at Ames Research Center with the Award SMD‐15‐5752. H. S., J. M., and D. J. M. were supported by the NSF MOBY project (OCE‐1048926 and OCE‐1048897). H. S. acknowledges the support by National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant (NRF‐2019R1C1C1003663) and Yonsei University Research Fund of 2018‐22‐0053. D. J. M. also gratefully acknowledges NASA support.

Description: 2019-12-17

Description: Presented at Marine Data Cluster, Online, October 24, 2019

Description: As a domain specific repository, BCO-DMO supports data stewardship throughout the data lifecycle. One key aspect of that data lifecycle is making data and metadata available online in a variety of file formats. This presentation will walk through BCO-DMO's current data serving system, our migration to ERDDAP, and what that might mean for the future. There will be a focus on the nuts-and-bolts of our migration, the benefits of this activity, and some of the difficulties we've encountered along the way.

Description: NSF #1435578

Description: © The Author(s), 2019. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Tanhua, T., Pouliquen, S., Hausman, J., O'Brien, K., Bricher, P., de Bruin, T., Buck, J. J. H., Burger, E. F., Carval, T., Casey, K. S., Diggs, S., Giorgetti, A., Glaves, H., Harscoat, V., Kinkade, D., Muelbert, J. H., Novellino, A., Pfeil, B., Pulsifer, P. L., Van de Putte, A., Robinson, E., Schaap, D., Smirnov, A., Smith, N., Snowden, D., Spears, T., Stall, S., Tacoma, M., Thijsse, P., Tronstad, S., Vandenberghe, T., Wengren, M., Wyborn, L., & Zhao, Z. Ocean FAIR data services. Frontiers in Marine Science, 6, (2019): 440, doi:10.3389/fmars.2019.00440.

Description: Well-founded data management systems are of vital importance for ocean observing systems as they ensure that essential data are not only collected but also retained and made accessible for analysis and application by current and future users. Effective data management requires collaboration across activities including observations, metadata and data assembly, quality assurance and control (QA/QC), and data publication that enables local and interoperable discovery and access and secures archiving that guarantees long-term preservation. To achieve this, data should be findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR). Here, we outline how these principles apply to ocean data and illustrate them with a few examples. In recent decades, ocean data managers, in close collaboration with international organizations, have played an active role in the improvement of environmental data standardization, accessibility, and interoperability through different projects, enhancing access to observation data at all stages of the data life cycle and fostering the development of integrated services targeted to research, regulatory, and operational users. As ocean observing systems evolve and an increasing number of autonomous platforms and sensors are deployed, the volume and variety of data increase dramatically. For instance, there are more than 70 data catalogs that contain metadata records for the polar oceans, a situation that makes comprehensive data discovery beyond the capacity of most researchers. To better serve research, operational, and commercial users, more efficient turnaround of quality data in known formats and made available through Web services is necessary. In particular, automation of data workflows will be critical to reduce friction throughout the data value chain. Adhering to the FAIR principles with free, timely, and unrestricted access to ocean observation data is beneficial for the originators, has obvious benefits for users, and is an essential foundation for the development of new services made possible with big data technologies.

Description: We thank the funding agencies and the data management projects that have made this work possible through dedicated funding for the data management activities and improvements. TT and JB acknowledge support from the EU Horizon 2020 project AtlantOS (grant agreement 633211). JM acknowledges support from the Integrated Oceanography and Multiple Uses of the Continental Shelf and the Adjacent Ocean Integrated Center of Oceanography (INCT-Mar COI, CNPq, Proc. 565062/2010-7). DS acknowledges support from the H2020 project SeaDataCloud (grant agreement 730960). SP acknowledges support from the EU Horizon 2020 project ENVRIplus (grant agreement 654182). AN acknowledges support from the EMODnet Physics (grant number EASME/EMFF/2016/1.3.1.2-Lot3/SI2.749411). HG acknowledges funding from the EU H2020 Ocean Data Interoperability Platform (ODIP) project (Grant No: 654310). JH acknowledges that funding came from the National Aeronautics and Space Agency as managed by the California Institute of Technology under task number 80NM0018F0848. AVdP acknowledges support from Belspo in the framework the EU Lifewatch ERIC (grant agreement FR/36/AN3). KO’B acknowledges that his publication is partially funded by the Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean (JISAO) under NOAA Cooperative Agreement NA15OAR4320063, Contribution No. 2018-0175.

Description: Presented at csv,conf,v4 Conference Portland, Oregon, May 5-8, 2019.

Description: Frictionless Data (FD) initiatives out of the Open Knowledge Foundation provide attractive informatics and processing capabilities. The BCO-DMO data repository used FD tools on real-world datasets, and we have some lessons learned to share. By building upon existing FD tools, we found ways to reduce the amount of time data managers spend generating metadata, and writing custom scripts. We are also developing ways for data managers with varying levels of scripting ability to make use of Frictionless Data tools.

Description: NSF #1435578

Description: © The Author(s), 2018. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Remote Sensing 10 (2018): 331, doi:10.3390/rs10020331.

Description: The Southern Ocean is the focus of many physical, chemical, and biological analyses due to its global importance and highly variable climate. This analysis of sea surface temperatures (SST) and global teleconnections shows that SSTs are significantly spatially correlated with both the Antarctic Oscillation and the Southern Oscillation, with spatial correlations between the indices and standardized SST anomalies approaching 1.0. Here, we report that the recent positive patterns in the Antarctic and Southern Oscillations are driving negative (cooling) trends in SST in the high latitude Southern Ocean and positive (warming) trends within the Southern Hemisphere sub-tropics and mid-latitudes. The coefficient of regression over the 35-year period analyzed implies that standardized temperatures have warmed at a rate of 0.0142 per year between 1982 and 2016 with a monthly standard error in the regression of 0.0008. Further regression calculations between the indices and SST indicate strong seasonality in response to changes in atmospheric circulation, with the strongest feedback occurring throughout the austral summer and autumn.

Description: B.S.F. is supported by the NASA/South Carolina Space-grant Graduate Assistantship. A. Macdonald acknowledges support from NOAA Grant #NA160AR4310172.

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2018. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Geophysical Research Letters 45 (2018): 11,275-11,283, doi:10.1029/2018GL079122.

Description: We analyze sources of ocean heat content (OHC) variability in the eastern North Atlantic subpolar gyre from both Eulerian and Lagrangian perspectives within two ocean simulations from 1990 to 2015. Heat budgets reveal that while the OHC seasonal cycle is driven by air‐sea fluxes, interannual OHC variability is driven by both air‐sea fluxes and the divergence of ocean heat transport, the latter of which is dominated by the oceanic flux through the southern face of the study area. Lagrangian trajectories initialized along the southern face and run backward in time indicate that interannual variability in the subtropical‐origin volume flux (i.e., the upper limb of the overturning circulation) drives variability in the temperature flux through the southern face. As such, the heat carried by the imported subtropical waters is an important component of the eastern subpolar gyre heat budget on interannual time scales.

Description: NSF. Grant Number NSF‐OCE‐12‐59102; NASA Grant Number: NNX13AO21H

Description: 2019-04-27

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2018. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Geophysical Research Letters 45 (2018): 5002-5010, doi:10.1029/2017GL076909.

Description: The Ocean Observatories Initiative air‐sea flux mooring deployed at 54.08°S, 89.67°W, in the southeast Pacific sector of the Southern Ocean, is the farthest south long‐term open ocean flux mooring ever deployed. Mooring observations (February 2015 to August 2017) provide the first in situ quantification of annual net air‐sea heat exchange from one of the prime Subantarctic Mode Water formation regions. Episodic turbulent heat loss events (reaching a daily mean net flux of −294 W/m2) generally occur when northeastward winds bring relatively cold, dry air to the mooring location, leading to large air‐sea temperature and humidity differences. Wintertime heat loss events promote deep mixed layer formation that lead to Subantarctic Mode Water formation. However, these processes have strong interannual variability; a higher frequency of 2 σ and 3 σ turbulent heat loss events in winter 2015 led to deep mixed layers (〉300 m), which were nonexistent in winter 2016.

Description: NSF Grant Number: PLR-1425989; NSF Grant Number: OCE-1357072; NSF Grant Number: OCE-1658001; UK Natural Environment Research Council; ORCHESTRA Grant Number: NE/N018095/1

Description: 2018-11-11

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2018. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Geophysical Research Letters 45 (2018): 5011-5019, doi:10.1029/2017GL076246.

Description: The Antarctic Circumpolar Current has highly energetic mesoscale phenomena, but their impacts on phytoplankton biomass, productivity, and biogeochemical cycling are not understood well. We analyze satellite observations and an eddy‐rich ocean model to show that they drive chlorophyll anomalies of opposite sign in winter versus summer. In winter, deeper mixed layers in positive sea surface height (SSH) anomalies reduce light availability, leading to anomalously low chlorophyll concentrations. In summer with abundant light, however, positive SSH anomalies show elevated chlorophyll concentration due to higher iron level, and an iron budget analysis reveals that anomalously strong vertical mixing enhances iron supply to the mixed layer. Features with negative SSH anomalies exhibit the opposite tendencies: higher chlorophyll concentration in winter and lower in summer. Our results suggest that mesoscale modulation of iron supply, light availability, and vertical mixing plays an important role in causing systematic variations in primary productivity over the seasonal cycle.

Description: 2018-11-17

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2018. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Geophysical Research Letters 45 (2018): 891–898, doi:10.1002/2017GL076045.

Description: In this paper we study upwelling pathways and timescales of Circumpolar Deep Water (CDW) in a hierarchy of models using a Lagrangian particle tracking method. Lagrangian timescales of CDW upwelling decrease from 87 years to 31 years to 17 years as the ocean resolution is refined from 1° to 0.25° to 0.1°. We attribute some of the differences in timescale to the strength of the eddy fields, as demonstrated by temporally degrading high-resolution model velocity fields. Consistent with the timescale dependence, we find that an average Lagrangian particle completes 3.2 circumpolar loops in the 1° model in comparison to 0.9 loops in the 0.1° model. These differences suggest that advective timescales and thus interbasin merging of upwelling CDW may be overestimated by coarse-resolution models, potentially affecting the skill of centennial scale climate change projections.

Description: Department of Energy's RGCM Grant Number: DE-SC0012457; Southern Ocean Carbon and Climate Observation and Modeling Grant Number: PLR-1425989; Climate and Global Change Postdoctoral Fellowship from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; Australian Research Council DECRA Fellowship Grant Number: DE170100184

Description: 2018-07-31

Description: Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2016. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Springer for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Climate Dynamics 48 (2017): 1297–1307, doi:10.1007/s00382-016-3142-3.

Description: The turbulent air-sea heat flux feedback (α, in W m-2 K-1) is a major contributor to setting the damping timescale of sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies. In this study we compare the spatial distribution and magnitude of α in the North Atlantic and the Southern Ocean, as estimated from the ERA-Interim reanalysis dataset. The comparison is rationalized in terms of an upper bound on the heat flux feedback, associated with \fast" atmospheric export of temperature and moisture anomalies away from the marine boundary layer, and a lower bound associated with "slow" export. It is found that regions of cold surface waters (≤10°C) are best described as approaching the slow export limit. This conclusion is not only valid at the synoptic scale resolved by the reanalysis data, but also on basin scales. In particular, it applies to the heat flux feedback acting as circumpolar SST anomaly scales are approached in the Southern Ocean, with feedbacks of ≤10 W m-2 K-1. In contrast, the magnitude of the heat flux feed-back is close to that expected from the fast export limit over the Gulf Stream and its recirculation with values on the order of ≈40 W m-2 K-1. Further analysis suggests that this high value reflects a compensation between a moderate thermo-dynamic adjustment of the boundary layer, which tends to weaken the heat flux feedback, and an enhancement of the surface winds over warm SST anomalies, which tend to enhance the feedback.

Description: Ute Hausmann and John Marshall acknowledge support by the FESD program of NSF.

Description: 2017-05-04

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2017. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Global Biogeochemical Cycles 31 (2017): 922–940, doi:10.1002/2016GB005615.

Description: A coupled global numerical simulation (conducted with the Community Earth System Model) is used in conjunction with satellite remote sensing observations to examine the role of top-down (grazing pressure) and bottom-up (light, nutrients) controls on marine phytoplankton bloom dynamics in the Southern Ocean. Phytoplankton seasonal phenology is evaluated in the context of the recently proposed “disturbance-recovery” hypothesis relative to more traditional, exclusively “bottom-up” frameworks. All blooms occur when phytoplankton division rates exceed loss rates to permit sustained net population growth; however, the nature of this decoupling period varies regionally in Community Earth System Model. Regional case studies illustrate how unique pathways allow blooms to emerge despite very poor division rates or very strong grazing rates. In the Subantarctic, southeast Pacific small spring blooms initiate early cooccurring with deep mixing and low division rates, consistent with the disturbance-recovery hypothesis. Similar systematics are present in the Subantarctic, southwest Atlantic during the spring but are eclipsed by a subsequent, larger summer bloom that is coincident with shallow mixing and the annual maximum in division rates, consistent with a bottom-up, light limited framework. In the model simulation, increased iron stress prevents a similar summer bloom in the southeast Pacific. In the simulated Antarctic zone (70°S–65°S) seasonal sea ice acts as a dominant phytoplankton-zooplankton decoupling agent, triggering a delayed but substantial bloom as ice recedes. Satellite ocean color remote sensing and ocean physical reanalysis products do not precisely match model-predicted phenology, but observed patterns do indicate regional variability in mechanism across the Atlantic and Pacific.

Description: NDSEG Graduate Fellowship; National Aeronautics and Space Administration Ocean Biology and Biogeochemistry Program Grant Number: NNX14L86G; NSF Poloar Programs Award Grant Number: 1440435; National Aeronautics and Space Administration Grant Number: NNX14AL86G; NDSEG; National Science Foundation Grant Number: 1440435

Description: 2017-11-30

Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2017. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 47 (2017): 1291-1305, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-16-0160.1.

Description: Along-stream variations in the dynamics of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) impact heat and tracer transport, regulate interbasin exchange, and influence closure of the overturning circulation. Topography is primarily responsible for generating deviations from zonal-mean properties, mainly through standing meanders associated with regions of high eddy kinetic energy. Here, an idealized channel model is used to explore the spatial distribution of energy exchange and its relationship to eddy geometry, as characterized by both eddy momentum and eddy buoyancy fluxes. Variations in energy exchange properties occur not only between standing meander and quasi-zonal jet regions, but throughout the meander itself. Both barotropic and baroclinic stability properties, as well as the magnitude of energy exchange terms, undergo abrupt changes along the path of the ACC. These transitions are captured by diagnosing eddy fluxes of energy and by adopting the eddy geometry framework. The latter, typically applied to barotropic stability properties, is applied here in the depth–along-stream plane to include information about both barotropic and baroclinic stability properties of the flow. These simulations reveal that eddy momentum fluxes, and thus barotropic instability, play a leading role in the energy budget within a standing meander. This result suggests that baroclinic instability alone cannot capture the dynamics of ACC standing meanders, a challenge for models where eddy fluxes are parameterized.

Description: The authors all acknowledge support from NSF OCE-1235488. MKY also acknowledges support from the AMS Graduate Student Fellowship.

Description: 2017-10-12

Description: Dataset: McMurdo Sound CTDs

Description: CTD data were collected as part of an ecosystem study in McMurdo Sound, which is located at the southern extent of the Ross Sea in the Southern Ocean. The major goal of this multi-disciplinary project was to assess the influence of top−down forcing (predation) on pelagic zooplankton and fish. During the first year (3 November 2012 – 21 January 2013), the CTD was deployed through ice core holes in the fast ice (sea ice attached to land), sampling from near surface to depths between 97 and 175 m. Stations were located along a transect in the middle of McMurdo Sound, perpendicular to the fast ice edge. In the second year (17 November 2014 – 1 January 2015), CTD casts were deployed between 100 and 254 m in depth, at stations along the fast ice edge, and along three transects into the fast ice along the eastern side of McMurdo Sound (Ross Island), in the middle of the Sound, and on the western side of the Sound. Chlorophyll fluorescence sensor measurements on the CTD casts were only made during the 2014/2015 field expedition. For a complete list of measurements, refer to the supplemental document 'Field_names.pdf', and a full dataset description is included in the supplemental file 'Dataset_description.pdf'. The most current version of this dataset is available at: http://www.bco-dmo.org/dataset/680929

Description: NSF Division of Polar Programs (NSF PLR) PLR-0944511

Description: Dataset: McMurdo Sound chlorophyll

Description: Discrete chlorophyll a data were collected as part of an ecosystem study in McMurdo Sound, which is located at the southern extent of the Ross Sea in the Southern Ocean. The major goal of this multi-disciplinary project was to assess the influence of top−down forcing (predation) on pelagic zooplankton and fish. Samples were collected using Niskin water bottles deployed through the fast ice (sea ice attached to land) during two spring/summer seasons: 3 November 2012 – 21 January 2013 and17 November 2014 – 1 January 2015. Water samples were collected at the surface and in the chlorophyll maximum, when present, as determined by a fluorescence sensor during a CTD cast. During 2012/2013, stations were located along a transect in the middle of McMurdo Sound, perpendicular to the fast ice edge. During 2014/2015, stations were located along the fast ice edge, and along three transects into the fast ice along the eastern side of the McMurdo Sound (Ross Island), in the middle of the Sound, and on the western side of the Sound. For a complete list of measurements, refer to the supplemental document 'Field_names.pdf', and a full dataset description is included in the supplemental file 'Dataset_description.pdf'. The most current version of this dataset is available at: http://www.bco-dmo.org/dataset/679685

Description: NSF Division of Polar Programs (NSF PLR) PLR-0944511

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2017. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans 122 (2017): 8208–8224, doi:10.1002/2017JC012985.

Description: Estimates of the global ocean vertical velocities (Eulerian, eddy-induced, and residual) from a dynamically consistent and data-constrained ocean state estimate are presented and analyzed. Conventional patterns of vertical velocity, Ekman pumping, appear in the upper ocean, with topographic dominance at depth. Intense and vertically coherent upwelling and downwelling occur in the Southern Ocean, which are likely due to the interaction of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current and large-scale topographic features and are generally canceled out in the conventional zonally averaged results. These “elevators” at high latitudes connect the upper to the deep and abyssal oceans and working together with isopycnal mixing are likely a mechanism, in addition to the formation of deep and abyssal waters, for fast responses of the deep and abyssal oceans to the changing climate. Also, Eulerian and parameterized eddy-induced components are of opposite signs in numerous regions around the global ocean, particularly in the ocean interior away from surface and bottom. Nevertheless, residual vertical velocity is primarily determined by the Eulerian component, and related to winds and large-scale topographic features. The current estimates of vertical velocities can serve as a useful reference for investigating the vertical exchange of ocean properties and tracers, and its complex spatial structure ultimately permits regional tests of basic oceanographic concepts such as Sverdrup balance and coastal upwelling/downwelling.

Description: National Science Foundation Grant Numbers: OCE-1736633 , OCE-1534618 , OCE-0961713; National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Grant Number: NA10OAR4310135

Description: 2018-04-27

Description: © The Author(s), 2016. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Journal of Marine Science and Engineering 4 (2016): 68, doi:10.3390/jmse4040068.

Description: Digital catalogs of ocean data have been available for decades, but advances in standardized services and software for catalog searches and data access now make it possible to create catalog-driven workflows that automate—end-to-end—data search, analysis, and visualization of data from multiple distributed sources. Further, these workflows may be shared, reused, and adapted with ease. Here we describe a workflow developed within the US Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) which automates the skill assessment of water temperature forecasts from multiple ocean forecast models, allowing improved forecast products to be delivered for an open water swim event. A series of Jupyter Notebooks are used to capture and document the end-to-end workflow using a collection of Python tools that facilitate working with standardized catalog and data services. The workflow first searches a catalog of metadata using the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Catalog Service for the Web (CSW), then accesses data service endpoints found in the metadata records using the OGC Sensor Observation Service (SOS) for in situ sensor data and OPeNDAP services for remotely-sensed and model data. Skill metrics are computed and time series comparisons of forecast model and observed data are displayed interactively, leveraging the capabilities of modern web browsers. The resulting workflow not only solves a challenging specific problem, but highlights the benefits of dynamic, reusable workflows in general. These workflows adapt as new data enter the data system, facilitate reproducible science, provide templates from which new scientific workflows can be developed, and encourage data providers to use standardized services. As applied to the ocean swim event, the workflow exposed problems with two of the ocean forecast products which led to improved regional forecasts once errors were corrected. While the example is specific, the approach is general, and we hope to see increased use of dynamic notebooks across geoscience domains.

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2017. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans 122 (2017): 2960–2975, doi:10.1002/2016JC012494.

Description: Traditionally, the mechanism driving the seasonal restratification of the Southern Ocean mixed layer (ML) is thought to be the onset of springtime warming. Recent developments in numerical modeling and North Atlantic observations have shown that submesoscale ML eddies (MLE) can drive a restratifying flux to shoal the deep winter ML prior to solar heating at high latitudes. The impact of submesoscale processes on the intraseasonal variability of the Subantarctic ML is still relatively unknown. We compare 5 months of glider data in the Subantarctic Zone to simulations of a 1-D mixing model to show that the magnitude of restratification of the ML cannot be explained by heat, freshwater, and momentum fluxes alone. During early spring, we estimate that periodic increases in the vertical buoyancy flux by MLEs caused small increases in stratification, despite predominantly down-front winds that promote the destruction of stratification. The timing of seasonal restratification was consistent between 1-D model estimates and the observations. However, during up-front winds, the strength of springtime stratification increased over twofold compared to the 1-D model, with a rapid shoaling of the MLD from 〉200 m to 〈100 m within a few days. The ML stratification is further modified under a negative Ekman buoyancy flux during down-front winds, resulting in the destruction of ML stratification and deepening of the MLD. These results propose the importance of submesoscale buoyancy fluxes enhancing seasonal restratification and mixing of the Subantarctic ML.

Description: South African NRF-SANAP Grant Number: SNA14071475720; NSF Grant Number: OCE-I434788

Description: 2017-10-08

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2016. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans 121 (2016): 6635–6649, doi:10.1002/2016JC011714.

Description: We investigate the role of mesoscale eddies in modulating air-sea CO2 flux and associated biogeochemical fields in Drake Passage using in situ observations and an eddy-resolving numerical model. Both observations and model show a negative correlation between temperature and partial pressure of CO2 (pCO2) anomalies at the sea surface in austral summer, indicating that warm/cold anticyclonic/cyclonic eddies take up more/less CO2. In austral winter, in contrast, relationships are reversed: warm/cold anticyclonic/cyclonic eddies are characterized by a positive/negative pCO2 anomaly and more/less CO2 outgassing. It is argued that DIC-driven effects on pCO2 are greater than temperature effects in austral summer, leading to a negative correlation. In austral winter, however, the reverse is true. An eddy-centric analysis of the model solution reveals that nitrate and iron respond differently to the same vertical mixing: vertical mixing has a greater impact on iron because its normalized vertical gradient at the base of the surface mixed layer is an order of magnitude greater than that of nitrate.

Description: NASA High-End Computing (HEC) Program through the NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) Division at Ames Research Center Grant Number: SMD-15-5752; NSF MOBY project Grant Numbers: (OCE-1048926), OCE-1259388, PLR-1341647, AOAS-0944761, and AOAS-066975; NOAA Climate Program Office Grant Number: (NA12OAR4310058)

Description: 2017-03-10

Description: © The Author(s), 2016. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Endangered Species Research 30 (2016): 239-253, doi:10.3354/esr00739.

Description: Distribution and movement patterns of Antarctic blue whales Balaenoptera musculus intermedia at large temporal and spatial scales are still poorly understood. The objective of this study was to explore spatio-temporal distribution patterns of Antarctic blue whales in the Atlantic sector of the Southern Ocean, using passive acoustic monitoring data. Multi-year data were collected between 2008 and 2013 by 11 recorders deployed in the Weddell Sea and along the Greenwich meridian. Antarctic blue whale Z-calls were detected via spectrogram cross-correlation. A Blue Whale Index was developed to quantify the proportion of time during which acoustic energy from Antarctic blue whales dominated over background noise. Our results show that Antarctic blue whales were acoustically present year-round, with most call detections between January and April. During austral summer, the number of detected calls peaked synchronously throughout the study area in most years, and hence, no directed meridional movement pattern was detectable. During austral winter, vocalizations were recorded at latitudes as high as 69°S, with sea ice cover exceeding 90%, suggesting that some Antarctic blue whales overwinter in Antarctic waters. Polynyas likely serve as an important habitat for baleen whales during austral winter, providing food and reliable access to open water for breathing. Overall, our results support increasing evidence of a complex and non-obligatory migratory behavior of Antarctic blue whales, potentially involving temporally and spatially dynamic migration routes and destinations, as well as variable timing of migration to and from the feeding grounds.

Description: © The Author(s), 2015. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Atmospheric Science Letters 17 (2016): 39-42, doi:10.1002/asl.596.

Description: Sea surface temperature in the Arabian Sea Mini Warm Pool has been suggested to be one of the factors that affects the Indian summer monsoon. In this paper, we analyze the annual ocean heat content (OHC) of this region during 1993–2010, using in situ data, satellite observations, and a model simulation. We find that OHC increases significantly in the region during this period relative to the north Indian Ocean, and propose that this increase could have caused the decrease in Indian Summer Monsoon Rainfall that occurred at the same time.

Description: © The Author(s), 2016. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Global Biogeochemical Cycles 30 (2016): 1124–1144, doi:10.1002/2016GB005414.

Description: The Great Calcite Belt (GCB) is a region of elevated surface reflectance in the Southern Ocean (SO) covering ~16% of the global ocean and is thought to result from elevated, seasonal concentrations of coccolithophores. Here we describe field observations and experiments from two cruises that crossed the GCB in the Atlantic and Indian sectors of the SO. We confirm the presence of coccolithophores, their coccoliths, and associated optical scattering, located primarily in the region of the subtropical, Agulhas, and Subantarctic frontal regions. Coccolithophore-rich regions were typically associated with high-velocity frontal regions with higher seawater partial pressures of CO2 (pCO2) than the atmosphere, sufficient to reverse the direction of gas exchange to a CO2 source. There was no calcium carbonate (CaCO3) enhancement of particulate organic carbon (POC) export, but there were increased POC transfer efficiencies in high-flux particulate inorganic carbon regions. Contemporaneous observations are synthesized with results of trace-metal incubation experiments, 234Th-based flux estimates, and remotely sensed observations to generate a mandala that summarizes our understanding about the factors that regulate the location of the GCB.

Description: National Science Foundation Grant Numbers: OCE-0961660, OCE-0728582, OCE-0961414, OCE-0960880; National Aeronautical and Space Administration Grant Numbers: NNX11AO72G, NNX11AL93G, NNX14AQ41G, NNX14AQ43A, NNX14AL92G, NNX14AM77G

Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2016. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 46 (2016): 1309-1321, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-15-0068.1.

Description: Direct measurements of oceanic turbulent parameters were taken upstream of and across Drake Passage, in the region of the Subantarctic and Polar Fronts. Values of turbulent kinetic energy dissipation rate ε estimated by microstructure are up to two orders of magnitude lower than previously published estimates in the upper 1000 m. Turbulence levels in Drake Passage are systematically higher than values upstream, regardless of season. The dissipation of thermal variance χ is enhanced at middepth throughout the surveys, with the highest values found in northern Drake Passage, where water mass variability is the most pronounced. Using the density ratio, evidence for double-diffusive instability is presented. Subject to double-diffusive physics, the estimates of diffusivity using the Osborn–Cox method are larger than ensemble statistics based on ε and the buoyancy frequency.

Description: This work was supported by grants from the U.S. National Science Foundation.

Description: 2016-10-05

Description: Dataset: CTD_MOCNESS1

Description: CTD data from MOCNESS-1m tows in the Southern Ocean around the South Shetland Islands and Palmer Archipelago, Western Antarctic Peninsula in November 2011. For a complete list of measurements, refer to the supplemental document 'Field_names.pdf', and a full dataset description is included in the supplemental file 'Dataset_description.pdf'. The most current version of this dataset is available at: http://www.bco-dmo.org/dataset/488871

Description: NSF Antarctic Sciences (NSF ANT) ANT-1044982

Description: Dataset: CTD data from LMG1110

Description: Hydrographic data from 20 CTD casts in the Southern Ocean around the South Shetland Islands and Palmer Archipelago, Western Antarctic Peninsula in November 2011. For a complete list of measurements, refer to the supplemental document 'Field_names.pdf', and a full dataset description is included in the supplemental file 'Dataset_description.pdf'. The most current version of this dataset is available at: http://www.bco-dmo.org/dataset/559174

Description: NSF Antarctic Sciences (NSF ANT) ANT-1044982

Description: Dataset: alongtrack

Description: This alongtrack data set consists of a single file produced for each day of the LMG1110 cruise, from 11/2/2011 to 12/1/2011. The LMG alongtrack data acquisition systems continuously log data from a suite of instruments throughout the cruise. Data were obtained primarily by applying calibrations to raw data and decimating to whole point intervals. However, several fields are derived measurements from more than a single raw input. For a complete list of measurements, refer to the supplemental document 'Field_names.pdf', and a full dataset description is included in the supplemental file 'Dataset_description.pdf'. The most current version of this dataset is available at: http://www.bco-dmo.org/dataset/3636

Description: NSF Antarctic Sciences (NSF ANT) ANT-1044982

Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2015. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 46 (2016): 417-437, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-15-0055.1.

Description: In the stratified ocean, turbulent mixing is primarily attributed to the breaking of internal waves. As such, internal waves provide a link between large-scale forcing and small-scale mixing. The internal wave field north of the Kerguelen Plateau is characterized using 914 high-resolution hydrographic profiles from novel Electromagnetic Autonomous Profiling Explorer (EM-APEX) floats. Altogether, 46 coherent features are identified in the EM-APEX velocity profiles and interpreted in terms of internal wave kinematics. The large number of internal waves analyzed provides a quantitative framework for characterizing spatial variations in the internal wave field and for resolving generation versus propagation dynamics. Internal waves observed near the Kerguelen Plateau have a mean vertical wavelength of 200 m, a mean horizontal wavelength of 15 km, a mean period of 16 h, and a mean horizontal group velocity of 3 cm s−1. The internal wave characteristics are dependent on regional dynamics, suggesting that different generation mechanisms of internal waves dominate in different dynamical zones. The wave fields in the Subantarctic/Subtropical Front and the Polar Front Zone are influenced by the local small-scale topography and flow strength. The eddy-wave field is influenced by the large-scale flow structure, while the internal wave field in the Subantarctic Zone is controlled by atmospheric forcing. More importantly, the local generation of internal waves not only drives large-scale dissipation in the frontal region but also downstream from the plateau. Some internal waves in the frontal region are advected away from the plateau, contributing to mixing and stratification budgets elsewhere.

Description: A.M. was supported by the joint CSIRO-University of Tasmania Quantitative Marine Science (QMS) program and the 2009 CSIRO Wealth from Ocean Flagship Collaborative Fund. K.L.P.’s salary support was provided by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution bridge support funds. B.M.S. was supported by the Australian Climate Change Science Program.

Description: 2016-06-07

Description: Dataset: event log LMG11-10

Description: The event log to record all instrument deployments during the cruise. For a complete list of measurements, refer to the supplemental document 'Field_names.pdf', and a full dataset description is included in the supplemental file 'Dataset_description.pdf'. The most current version of this dataset is available at: http://www.bco-dmo.org/dataset/3565

Description: NSF Antarctic Sciences (NSF ANT) ANT-1044982

Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2015. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 45 (2015): 966–987, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-14-0110.1.

Description: A key remaining challenge in oceanography is the understanding and parameterization of small-scale mixing. Evidence suggests that topographic features play a significant role in enhancing mixing in the Southern Ocean. This study uses 914 high-resolution hydrographic profiles from novel EM-APEX profiling floats to investigate turbulent mixing north of the Kerguelen Plateau, a major topographic feature in the Southern Ocean. A shear–strain finescale parameterization is applied to estimate diapycnal diffusivity in the upper 1600 m of the ocean. The indirect estimates of mixing match direct microstructure profiler observations made simultaneously. It is found that mixing intensities have strong spatial and temporal variability, ranging from O(10−6) to O(10−3) m2 s−1. This study identifies topographic roughness, current speed, and wind speed as the main factors controlling mixing intensity. Additionally, the authors find strong regional variability in mixing dynamics and enhanced mixing in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current frontal region. This enhanced mixing is attributed to dissipating internal waves generated by the interaction of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current and the topography of the Kerguelen Plateau. Extending the mixing observations from the Kerguelen region to the entire Southern Ocean, this study infers a large water mass transformation rate of 17 Sverdrups (Sv; 1 Sv ≡ 106 m3 s−1) across the boundary of Antarctic Intermediate Water and Upper Circumpolar Deep Water in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current. This work suggests that the contribution of mixing to the Southern Ocean overturning circulation budget is particularly significant in fronts.

Description: AM was supported by the joint CSIRO–University of Tasmania Quantitative Marine Science (QMS) program and the 2009 CSIRO Wealth from Ocean Flagship Collaborative Fund. BMS was supported by the Australian Climate Change Science Program, jointly funded by the Department of the Environment and CSIRO. KLPs salary support was provided by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution bridge support funds.

Description: 2015-10-01

Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2015. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 45 (2015): 1610–1631, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-14-0047.1.

Description: The use of a measure to diagnose submesoscale isopycnal diffusivity by determining the best match between observations of a tracer and simulations with varying small-scale diffusivities is tested. Specifically, the robustness of a “roughness” measure to discriminate between tracer fields experiencing different submesoscale isopycnal diffusivities and advected by scaled altimetric velocity fields is investigated. This measure is used to compare numerical simulations of the tracer released at a depth of about 1.5 km in the Pacific sector of the Southern Ocean during the Diapycnal and Isopycnal Mixing Experiment in the Southern Ocean (DIMES) field campaign with observations of the tracer taken on DIMES cruises. The authors find that simulations with an isopycnal diffusivity of ~20 m2 s−1 best match observations in the Pacific sector of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC), rising to ~20–50 m2 s−1 through Drake Passage, representing submesoscale processes and any mesoscale processes unresolved by the advecting altimetry fields. The roughness measure is demonstrated to be a statistically robust way to estimate a small-scale diffusivity when measurements are relatively sparse in space and time, although it does not work if there are too few measurements overall. The planning of tracer measurements during a cruise in order to maximize the robustness of the roughness measure is also considered. It is found that the robustness is increased if the spatial resolution of tracer measurements is increased with the time since tracer release.

Description: We thank the U.K. Natural Environment Research Council and the U.S. National Science Foundation for funding the DIMES project.

Description: 2015-12-01

Description: Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2014. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Springer for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Earth Science Informatics 8 (2015): 721-739, doi:10.1007/s12145-014-0202-2.

Description: By broad consensus, Open Data presents great value. However, beyond that simple statement, there are a number of complex, and sometimes contentious, issues that the science community must address. In this review, we examine the current state of the core issues of Open Data with the unique perspective and use cases of the ocean science community: interoperability; discovery and access; quality and fitness for purpose; and sustainability. The topics of Governance and Data Publication are also examined in detail. Each of the areas covered are, by themselves, complex and the approaches to the issues under consideration are often at odds with each other. Any comprehensive policy on Open Data will require compromises that are best resolved by broad community input. In the final section of the review, we provide recommendations that serve as a starting point for these discussions.

Description: The authors acknowledge the support of the National Science Foundation through Grant Award No. OCE-1143683.

Description: 2016-01-07

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2015. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans 120 (2015): 2370-2384, doi:10.1002/2014JC010516.

Description: Expendable bathythermographs (XBTs) have been launched along a repeat track from New Jersey to Bermuda from the CMV Oleander through the NOAA/NEFSC Ship of Opportunity Program about 14 times per year since 1977. The XBT temperatures on the Middle Atlantic Bight shelf are binned with 10 km horizontal and 5 m vertical resolution to produce monthly, seasonally, and annually averaged cross-shelf temperature sections. The depth-averaged shelf temperature, Ts, calculated from annually averaged sections that are spatially averaged across the shelf, increases at 0.026 ± 0.001°C yr−1 from 1977 to 2013, with the recent trend substantially larger than the overall 37 year trend (0.11 ± 0.02°C yr−1 since 2002). The Oleander temperature sections suggest that the recent acceleration in warming on the shelf is not confined to the surface, but occurs throughout the water column with some contribution from interactions between the shelf and the adjacent Slope Sea reflected in cross-shelf motions of the shelfbreak front. The local warming on the shelf cannot explain the region's amplified rate of sea level rise relative to the global mean. Additionally, Ts exhibits significant interannual variability with the warmest anomalies increasing in intensity over the 37 year record even as the cold anomalies remain relatively uniform throughout the record. Ts anomalies are not correlated with annually averaged coastal sea level anomalies at zero lag. However, positive correlation is found between 2 year lagged Ts anomalies and coastal sea level anomalies, suggesting that the region's sea level anomalies may serve as a predictor of shelf temperature.

Description: J.F. was supported as a Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Summer Student Fellow by the National Science Foundation's Research Experiences for Undergraduates through OCE-0649139. M.A. received support through OCE-1332667 and G.G. through OCE-1435602.

Description: 2015-09-27

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2015. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans 120 (2015): 1065–1078, doi:10.1002/2014JC010292.

Description: The role of mesoscale eddies in the uptake of anthropogenic chlorofluorocarbon-11 (CFC-11) gas is investigated with a 1/20° eddy-resolving numerical ocean model of a region of the Southern Ocean. With a relatively fast air-sea equilibrium time scale (about a month), the air-sea CFC-11 flux quickly responds to the changes in the mixed layer CFC-11 partial pressure (pCFC-11). At the mesoscale, significant correlations are observed between pCFC-11 anomaly, anomalies in sea surface temperature (SST), net heat flux, and mixed layer depth. An eddy-centric analysis of the simulated CFC-11 field suggests that anticyclonic warm-core eddies generate negative pCFC-11 anomalies and cyclonic cold-core eddies generate positive anomalies of pCFC-11. Surface pCFC-11 is modulated by mixed layer dynamics in addition to CFC-11 air-sea fluxes. A negative cross correlation between mixed layer depth and surface pCFC-11 anomalies is linked to higher CFC-11 uptake in anticyclones and lower CFC-11 uptake in cyclones, especially in winter. An almost exact asymmetry in the air-sea CFC-11 flux between cyclones and anticyclones is found.

Description: We gratefully acknowledge NSF support of the MOBY project (grant OCE-1048926 to MIT and OCE-1048897 to WHOI). In addition, P.G. and D.J.M. thank NASA for partial support of this work through grant NNX13AE47G.

Description: 2015-08-23

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2015. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Geophysical Research Letters 42 (2015): 3450–3457, doi:10.1002/2015GL063216.

Description: The impact of a mesoscale eddy on the magnitude and spatial distribution of diapycnal ocean mixing is investigated using a set of hydrographic and microstructure measurements collected in the Southern Ocean. These data sampled a baroclinic, middepth eddy formed during the disintegration of a deep boundary current. Turbulent dissipation is suppressed within the eddy but is elevated by up to an order of magnitude along the upper and lower eddy boundaries. A ray tracing approximation is employed as a heuristic device to elucidate how the internal wave field evolves in the ambient velocity and stratification conditions accompanying the eddy. These calculations are consistent with the observations, suggesting reflection of internal wave energy from the eddy center and enhanced breaking through critical layer processes along the eddy boundaries. These results have important implications for understanding where and how internal wave energy is dissipated in the presence of energetic deep geostrophic flows.

Description: Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). Grant Numbers: NE/E007058/1, NE/E005667/1; U.S. National Science Foundation. Grant Numbers: OCE-1231803, OCE-0927583, OCE-1030309; NERC

Description: 2015-11-07

Description: Coastal mapping plays an important role in informing marine spatial planning, resource management, maritime safety, hazard assessment and even national sovereignty. As such, there is now a plethora of data/metadata catalogs, pre-made maps, tabular and text information on resource availability and exploitation, and decision-making tools. A recent trend has been to encapsulate these in a special class of web-enabled geographic information systems called a coastal web atlas (CWA). While multiple benefits are derived from tailor-made atlases, there is great value added from the integration of disparate CWAs. CWAs linked to one another can query more successfully to optimize planning and decision-making. If a dataset is missing in one atlas, it may be immediately located in another. Similar datasets in two atlases may be combined to enhance study in either region. But how best to achieve semantic interoperability to mitigate vague data queries, concepts or natural language semantics when retrieving and integrating data and information? We report on the development of a new prototype seeking to interoperate between two initial CWAs: the Marine Irish Digital Atlas (MIDA) and the Oregon Coastal Atlas (OCA). These two mature atlases are used as a testbed for more regional connections, with the intent for the OCA to use lessons learned to develop a regional network of CWAs along the west coast, and for MIDA to do the same in building and strengthening atlas networks with the UK, Belgium, and other parts of Europe. Our prototype uses semantic interoperability via services harmonization and ontology mediation, allowing local atlases to use their own data structures, and vocabularies (ontologies). We use standard technologies such as OGC Web Map Services (WMS) for delivering maps, and OGC Catalogue Service for the Web (CSW) for delivering and querying ISO-19139 metadata. The metadata records of a given CWA use a given ontology of terms called local ontology. Human or machine users formulate their requests using a common ontology of metadata terms, called global ontology. A CSW mediator rewrites the user’s request into CSW requests over local CSWs using their own (local) ontologies, collects the results and sends them back to the user. To extend the system, we have recently added global maritime boundaries and are also considering nearshore ocean observing system data. Ongoing work includes adding WFS, error management, and exception handling, enabling Smart Searches, and writing full documentation. This prototype is a central research project of the new International Coastal Atlas Network (ICAN), a group of 30+ organizations from 14 nations (and growing) dedicated to seeking interoperability approaches to CWAs in support of coastal zone management and the translation of coastal science to coastal decision-making.

Description: Alternate reference: Eos, Transactions of the American Geophysical Union, 2009 Fall Meeting, American Geophysical Union, Volume 90(52), San Francisco, CA, p.IN21B-1054 (2009)

Description: Published

Description: From June 16th to 17th, 2013, the International Coastal Atlas Network (ICAN) held a workshop on “Expanding Participation in Coastal Web Atlas Development and Use”, at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. The workshop (aka “ICAN 6”) engaged 29 participants from 9 countries, representing 22 organizations and multiple areas of scientific and technical expertise. This meeting was a follow-up to the successful 2011 workshop on “Coastal Atlases as Engines for Coastal & Marine Spatial Planning” (aka “ICAN 5”) held in Oostende, Belgium, as well as workshops in 2009, 2008, 2007 and 2006. ICAN 6 provided an opportunity to discuss how the ICAN community could take advantage of now being an IODE project, to share its knowledge and aid capacity building among IOC member states in relation to coastal and marine data management. Moreover, ICAN has seen its membership grow in the last two years and given its extensive membership along the North and South American Pacific coasts it was a great opportunity to hear about atlas developments in those regions. Key activities at the workshop included: exploring the opportunities for ICAN in an IODE context and how to build synergies with other IOC projects; the activities of the Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS) project of the IOC were presented as well as IOC’s ICAM programme which highlighted how data management tools developed within ICAN can contribute to the goals of ICAM. Beyond the IOC, activities within the Group on Earth Observations’ (GEO) Coastal Zone Community of Practise (CZCP) are very relevant to ICAN, in particular the objective to develop a global coastal zone information system (CZIS). ICAN can help inform the development of such a CZIS. discussion of coastal atlas training needs and how ICAN members can contribute; in particular the training requirements of the African Coastal and Marine Atlas, and the Caribbean Marine Atlas were discussed. An overview of IODE training activities was presented and linkages on training between ICAN and ICAM related projects (e.g. SPINCAM II) were discussed. ICAN should also take advantage of the OceanTeacher platform developed by IODE. Atlas Stories – presentations from Atlas developers and users from North and South American Pacific coasts and beyond; the ICAN 6 Atlas Stories focused on CWA development around the Western Pacific Rim presenting new activities as well as updating the network on recent upgrades to previously discussed CWAs. The session started with the South American SPINCAM project which is developing atlases across five countries, followed by updates on the Oregon Coastal Atlas and the Washington State Coastal Atlas. Workshop participants also learned about Canada’s CanCoast and ShoreZone and the session concluded with the introduction to SmartAtlas through the African Coastal & Marine Atlas experience. a small “workshop within a workshop” for atlas technical developers on how to become a new node in the ICAN interoperability portal, version 3; The latest version has multilingual search capability, semantic search and the ability to connect directly to map services and display the results in a map. It was agreed that the current interface will be upgraded to HTML5 in the coming period. a small “workshop within a workshop” focussing on Volunteered Geographical Information (VGI) and its implications for coastal atlases; within the EEA, systems have been developed using both crowdsourcing and citizen science approaches. SeaSketch is a software platform intended as an end-to-end mapping solution for marine spatial planning, which allows anyone, regardless of their technical abilities, to sketch prospective management plans and receive analytical feedback on the consequences of their designs. The Marine Regions project aims to develop a standard for georeferenced marine names and there is potential to link it to the ICAN portal. Esri is introducing the concept of a “living Atlas” which is delivered via ArcGIS Online (AGOL). ICAN members can take advantage of this concept by using it to leverage their existing Atlas holdings or by using the platform to build a new Atlas quickly. development of an ICAN work plan for the period 2013-2015; this included plans for developing a communications strategy, a handbook on how atlas developers and users can interact and building synergies with other IOC and non-IOC projects. It also looked at developing a coastal atlas training plan. At its core ICAN supports atlas development and interoprerability approaches, therefore the Technical Committee presented its plans for developments in the next two years. The workshop concluded with the first face-to-face meeting of the new Steering Group, which was put in place after ICAN became an IODE project. This meeting saw two new members join the SG and leaders for the various work plan elements were appointed. Since ICAN 6 there have been developments in relation to the work plan. A revised plan and associated budget request was submitted to the IODE Officers meeting held in March 2014. As IODE has a limited budget and a number of projects to support, not all work plan items will receive funding, however the funding allocated will be of significant assistance to maintain ICAN and help progress its work. ICAN is now on a sound footing as part of the IODE family of projects, although members should continue to seek funding from other sources to advance the key technical activities. This ambitious work plan will require the commitment of all members to ensure that it can be implemented. A priority for 2014 is the redevelopment of the web site in order to make it easier to navigate and more responsive to user needs. Interoperability remains a core activity of ICAN and the technical committee has proposed a number of activities to progress further the developments in this area. A key technical concept which emerged at ICAN 6 was that of an “atlas-in-a-box”. The idea is that a new atlas developer can get started quickly on implementing and publishing a CWA with a minimal amount of technical/programming knowledge. The committee intends to scope the feasibility of such a development based on potential solutions such as SmartAtlas and ArcGIS Online. We would like to thank Rosaline Canessa and her team at the University of Victoria for their warm welcome and excellent hosting of ICAN-6 and we look forward to seeing you at the 7th International workshop (aka ICAN 7) which will be hosted by CSIR at Stellenbosch in South Africa from April 20th to 21st 2015, just before CoastGIS 2015

Description: Coastal and Marine Research Centre, University;College Cork Esri EUCC Coastal & Marine Union University of Victoria IODE

Description: Published

Description: The Washington Coastal Atlas, first established in 1995, has proven to be a valuable resource to coastal and environmental managers. The Washington Department of Ecology developed the online atlas to assist local governments with their Shoreline Management Planning efforts. Interest and use of the atlas now extends to a broad audience, ranging from policy makers to the general public. Data layers available on the site include biological features such as wetlands and eelgrass beds, and physical features including drift cells and slope stability data. The atlas also includes 60 years of oblique aerial photos to view other shoreline features such as the level of development and presence of any shoreline modification. Coastal management issues do not stop at borders. The Washington Coastal Atlas is joining its neighbor, the Oregon Coastal Atlas, in the International Coastal Atlas Network (ICAN) prototype to illustrate the practical benefits of collaboration and metadata/data sharing for coastal management on a regional and international level. The Washington Coastal Atlas will be the first to join the prototype using ESRI technology, providing a robust demonstration of how Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Catalog Services for the Web (CSW) and Web Map Services (WMS) are able to connect atlases built on either open source or proprietary software. This talk will present the Washington Coastal Atlas, the steps that will be taken to connect it with the ICAN prototype, and the expected benefits for coastal management in the Pacific Northwest region.

Description: Published

Description: The International Coastal Atlas Network (ICAN) is a newly-founded initiative comprised of a partnership of over 30 organizations from more than a dozen nations. It aims to be a global reference for the development of coastal web atlases (CWAs), which are defined as collections of digital, web-enabled maps and datasets with supplementary tables, illustrations, and information that systematically illustrate the coast, oftentimes with cartographic and decision support tools. These atlases are playing an increasingly important role as elements of spatial data infrastructures at state and national scales, and in assisting regional decision- and policy-making across numerous themes including coastal vulnerability to climate change impacts and population presssures, coastal governance (boundaries, protected areas, etc.), coastal hazards mitigation, marine spatial planning, resource availability and exploitation. Many of these atlases offer discovery, view and download services in line with the INSPIRE Directive. Another strategic aim of ICAN is to take advantage of the expertise of its members to find common solutions to CWA development, and to encourage and facilitate global operational interoperability between CWAs for enhanced data sharing, and the translation of coastal science to coastal decision-making. The paper describes the rationale and development of several products that ICAN has been developing for this purpose, such as user and developer guides, handbooks and articles on best practices, information on standards and web services, expertise and technical support directories, education, outreach materials, and workshops. The long-term goal of ICAN is to enable U.S. national and global-level operational interoperability between CWAs, based on the principle of shared distributed information, which will also provide a basis for rationally-informed discussion, debate and negotiation of sustainable management policies for regional governance. This will evolve as the ICAN community strives to increase awareness of the opportunities that exist for increased coastal and marine data sharing among policy makers, resource managers, and other strategic users of CWAs. The paper describes the experiences of and lessons learned by ICAN participants as they have developed the structure and governance of the organization, partnered with similar initiatives, and played leadership roles in forging international collaborations of value to their participating nations. A major long-term goal is to help build a functioning digital atlas of the worldwide coast.

Description: Presented at the conference by Roger Longhorn.

Description: Published

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2015. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres 120 (2015): 1794–1807, doi:10.1002/2014JD022483.

Description: Satellite observations of carbon dioxide (CO2) offer novel and distinctive opportunities for improving our quantitative understanding of the carbon cycle. Prospective observations include those from space-based lidar such as the active sensing of CO2 emissions over nights, days, and seasons (ASCENDS) mission. Here we explore the ability of such a mission to detect regional changes in CO2 fluxes. We investigate these using three prototypical case studies, namely, the thawing of permafrost in the northern high latitudes, the shifting of fossil fuel emissions from Europe to China, and changes in the source/sink characteristics of the Southern Ocean. These three scenarios were used to design signal detection studies to investigate the ability to detect the unfolding of these scenarios compared to a baseline scenario. Results indicate that the ASCENDS mission could detect the types of signals investigated in this study, with the caveat that the study is based on some simplifying assumptions. The permafrost thawing flux perturbation is readily detectable at a high level of significance. The fossil fuel emission detectability is directly related to the strength of the signal and the level of measurement noise. For a nominal (lower) fossil fuel emission signal, only the idealized noise-free instrument test case produces a clearly detectable signal, while experiments with more realistic noise levels capture the signal only in the higher (exaggerated) signal case. For the Southern Ocean scenario, differences due to the natural variability in the El Niño–Southern Oscillation climatic mode are primarily detectable as a zonal increase.

Description: This material is based upon work supported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration under grant NNX08AJ92G issued through the Research Opportunities in Space and Earth Sciences Carbon Cycle Science program and by Jet Propulsion Laboratory subcontract 1442785 as well as the ASCENDS Science Requirements Definition Team. S. Doney acknowledges support from U.S. National Science Foundation (AGS-1048827). K. Schaefer acknowledges support from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration under grant NA09OAR4310063 and from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration under grant NNX10AR63G.

Description: 2015-09-11

Description: © The Author(s), 2015. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Frontiers in Microbiology 6 (2015): 1090, doi:10.3389/fmicb.2015.01090.

Description: Antarctica polynyas support intense phytoplankton blooms, impacting their environment by a substantial depletion of inorganic carbon and nutrients. These blooms are dominated by the colony-forming haptophyte Phaeocystis antarctica and they are accompanied by a distinct bacterial population. Yet, the ecological role these bacteria may play in P. antarctica blooms awaits elucidation of their functional gene pool and of the geochemical activities they support. Here, we report on a metagenome (~160 million reads) analysis of the microbial community associated with a P. antarctica bloom event in the Amundsen Sea polynya (West Antarctica). Genomes of the most abundant Bacteroidetes and Proteobacteria populations have been reconstructed and a network analysis indicates a strong functional partitioning of these bacterial taxa. Three of them (SAR92, and members of the Oceanospirillaceae and Cryomorphaceae) are found in close association with P. antarctica colonies. Distinct features of their carbohydrate, nitrogen, sulfur and iron metabolisms may serve to support mutualistic relationships with P. antarctica. The SAR92 genome indicates a specialization in the degradation of fatty acids and dimethylsulfoniopropionate (compounds released by P. antarctica) into dimethyl sulfide, an aerosol precursor. The Oceanospirillaceae genome carries genes that may enhance algal physiology (cobalamin synthesis). Finally, the Cryomorphaceae genome is enriched in genes that function in cell or colony invasion. A novel pico-eukaryote, Micromonas related genome (19.6 Mb, ~94% completion) was also recovered. It contains the gene for an anti-freeze protein, which is lacking in Micromonas at lower latitudes. These draft genomes are representative for abundant microbial taxa across the Southern Ocean surface.

Description: This work was performed with financial support from NSF Antarctic Sciences awards ANT-1142095 to AP.