An approved U.S. Ocean-Shot effort
On 1 Sep 2021, the U.S. National Committee for the Ocean Decade announced that the OceanPredict.US effort had been reviewed and approved as a U.S. “Ocean-Shot”, an ambitious, transformational research concept to advance ocean science for sustainable development.
UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development – Endorsed Efforts:
Programs
ForeSea: The Ocean Prediction Capacity of the Future
The ocean predication capacity of the future. ForeSea’s vision is for strong international coordination and community building of an ocean prediction capacity for the future. The overarching goal are to (1) improve the science, capacity, efficacy, use, and impact of ocean prediction systems and (2) build a seamless ocean information value chain, from observations to end users, for economic and societal benefit. These transformative goals aim to make ocean prediction science more impactful and relevant.
CoastPredict: Observing & Predicting the Global Coastal Ocean
High-level objectives: 1) A predicted global coastal ocean; 2) Upgrade to a fit-for-purpose oceanographic information infrastructure; 3) Co-design and implementation of an integrated coastal ocean observing and forecasting system adhering to best practices and standards, designed as a global framework and implemented locally. CoastPredict will transform the science of observing and predicting the Global Coastal Ocean, from river catchments, including urban scales, to the oceanic slope waters. It will integrate observations with numerical models to produce predictions with uncertainties from extreme events to climate, for the coastal marine ecosystems (their services), biodiversity, co-designing transformative response to science and societal needs.
DITTO: Digital Twins of the Ocean
For the Ocean and Earth in particular, digital twinning means to intuitively bundle and provide easy access to marine data, models, and simulations to explore “what if” scenarios. The Digital Twins of the Ocean UN Decade Programme intends to build a Digital Twin of the Ocean Framework that allows users to create a family of application-focussed digital twins that collectively twin the ocean as a whole, with access to a range of ocean data and forecasting and predictive systems. This powerful framework will enable users to visualize and explore ocean knowledge and empower ocean professionals and models, forecasts, citizen scientists, policymakers, and the general public alike.
OASIS: An Observing Air-Sea Interactions Strategy
Air-sea exchanges of energy, moisture, and gases drive and modulate the Earth’s weather and climate, influencing life, including our own. These air-sea interactions fuel the hydrological cycle and affect precipitation across the globe. Air-sea interactions affect the distribution of carbon dioxide between the atmosphere and ocean, how seawater flows and winds blow, and how pollutants floating on the ocean surface move – information critical to policymakers, industry, and civil society. The Observing Air-Sea Interactions Strategy (OASIS) PROGRAMME will provide observational-based knowledge to fundamentally improve weather, climate and ocean prediction, promote healthy oceans, the blue economy, and sustainable food and energy.
Marine Life 2030: A Global Integrated Marine Biodiversity Information Management and Forecasting System for Sustainable Development and Conservation
Marine Life 2030 will establish the globally coordinated system to deliver actionable, transdisciplinary knowledge of ocean life to those who need it, promoting human well-being, sustainable development, and ocean conservation. Within a decade, Marine Life 2030 will unite existing and frontier technologies and partners into a global, interoperable network and community of practice advancing observation and forecasting of marine life. This network of networks will link technical, management and policy stakeholders to build and exchange capacity for advancing society’s grand challenges of managing activities for a healthy and resilient ocean and the vibrant and healthy society that depends on it.
Contributions
CEOS COASTS: Committee on Earth Observation Satellites – Coastal Observations, Applications, Services, and Tools
COAST is a team within the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites focused on the coastal zone, especially the land-sea (~aquatic) interface. Working collaboratively with stakeholders to co-design and co-develop high priority products which resonate with major agencies and by leveraging CEOS-wide agency capabilities and capacities, CEOS COAST pilot projects are uniquely capable of using Earth Observation to provide a multidisciplinary approach to addressing the SDGs, disaster risk reduction and coastal resilience in response to climate change. Diverse societal issues are tackled by COAST under the pilot project themes across geographical regions ranging from continental shorelines to small-island nations.
World Ocean Database Programme (WODP): Openly discoverable, accessible, adaptable, and comprehensive digital global profile oceanographic data of known quality
Countries need access to oceanographic profile data of known quality to ad ess current and emergent scientific and socio-economic issues at all spatial and temporal scales. The challenge is that data users cannot access the immense and growing globally distributed data that exists in diverse digital formats. The World Ocean Database (WOD) mitigates this challenge. WOD is the world largest unrestricted, uniformly formatted, quality controlled, digital ocean profile database available with data from 1778 to present. WOD acquires and receives ocean data worldwide for ocean Climate Essential Variables (EOV), plankton, and other variables including data from the World Data Service for Oceanography; part of the World Data System. WOD is hosted at NOAA and it is a project of the International Oceanographic Data Exchange (IODE) of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Committee (IOC). WOD is a Center for Marine Meteorology and Oceanographic Climate Data (CMOC) in the Marine Climate Data System; a joint system of IOC and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). In partnership with IODE, NOAA proposes to develop and deploy a data ingestion tool at the IODE project office in Belgium together with Cloud services as a starting point. This effort builds on IODE’s Ocean Data and Information System (ODIS) and will enable National Oceanographic Data Centers worldwide and other digital repositories to (i) upload their oceanographic data into WOD and (ii) retrieve data in an uniform interoperable format; a value-added proposition. The vision is to achieve openly discoverable, accessible, and adaptable digital profile oceanographic data of known quality.