Copy
Latest news on AOOS activities.
Spring E-NEWS

Covid-19 Impacts AOOS Programs


AOOS continues to move forward in the COVID-19 atmosphere with most of our collaborations held “virtually”. The AOOS data center has largely been unaffected, but some observing projects have slowed while our principal investigators (PIs) work out the kinks in travel and ship support. Many long-term monitoring efforts that rely on spring turn-arounds of sensor arrays have been delayed. Several site visits to water level stations for maintenance and repair have been put on hold indefinitely, and AOOS is working on alternative plans for servicing other assets in the region. UAF PIs have been coordinating with local organizations on the North Slope and with Bering Strait communities to assist them in getting the coastal High Frequency Radar arrays up and running. AOOS has been waiting to swap out the Lower Cook Inlet CDIP Wave buoy since January, due first to weather and now to COVID-19 travel restrictions. We are coordinating with the Kachemak Bay Research Reserve and NOAA to identify an appropriate vessel and develop a plan for safe deployment. We are still working on a solution to re-deploying a wave buoy to support Port of Nome operations, which is open for ship traffic. Overall, we are continuing to do as much work as possible to keep environmental data available to the ocean community, while still keeping workers and our coastal communities safe.

Seward Line Research Continues
Despite numerous oceanographic cruise cancellations and postponements due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the University of Alaska Fairbanks was able proceed in May from the research vessel Sikuliaq with an important long term ecological research sampling effort along the Seward Line in the Gulf of Alaska.
 
UAF chief scientist Russ Hopcroft and his team worked hard to develop a field plan for a dramatically reduced science team incorporating approved health and safety measures. “There is the balance to be found between our desire to maintain our scientific work and the health [and] safety of those involved,” said Hopcroft. The data that have been collected over the last 22 years along the Seward Line are being used to make informed assessments of Alaska marine ecosystem health and status and developing catch quotas for fisheries in the North Pacific.
 
The Sikuliaq’s spring cruise was successfully completed on May 10 having met all cruise objectives and adding critical information to this important long term study. According to Hopcroft, “With so few other measurements being taken by colleagues this year, these data will probably be one of the few data sets being acquired this spring in the Gulf of Alaska.”
Early in the morning on January 23, 2018, a magnitude 7.9 earthquake off the coast of Kodiak caused the National Tsunami Warning Center in Palmer, Alaska to issue a Tsunami Watch in Alaska and the entire West Coast of the United States. The watch was cancelled a few hours later based on water level measurements at open-ocean buoys with Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis (DART) technology.
 
The DART program began in 2001 with an array of 6 buoys, but it quickly expanded to 39 buoys distributed in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. In their standard mode, DART buoys are designed to measure water levels every 15 seconds using a bottom pressure recorder, but their software can automatically detect a tsunami wave and move to a more specialized event recording mode for up to 4 hours or longer.
 
AOOS hosts data from nine DART buoys that were deployed in the North Pacific Ocean, four of which are currently operational and providing real-time data: Attu (WMO #21414), Kamchatka Peninsula (WMO #21416), Southeast Shumagin Island (WMO #46403), and South Cordova (WMO #46410). To find these stations, you can search for them individually in the AOOS Ocean Data Explorer catalog, or you can access them through the DART source page.
 
AOOS displays hourly data from these stations, but if you're interested in the 15-minute data you can follow the source links to the National Buoy Data Center and download their highest resolution data.
 
Learn more about the NOAA Tsunami Detection Program.

AOOS welcomes Jill Prewitt to our team as the coordinator for a new AOOS project: the Bering Region Ocean Data Sharing Initiative - or BODSI. Jill comes to AOOS with a background in marine mammal research and management, both in Alaska and in the North Atlantic. She looks forward to working on the broader ecosystem perspectives that the BODSI project entails. 

BODSI is funded by a national initiative to increase sharing of ocean data among federal and state agencies, Tribes, and private Industry. Given the rapid environmental changes being seen in the Bering Sea region, the AOOS board determined that enhancing ocean and environmental data sharing and developing more data applications in that region are high priorities. Jill is now interviewing a variety of Tribal representatives, stakeholders, agency managers, and users of the Bering region marine environment to identify key needs and gaps for data products to improve decision-making. More information about the BODSI project can be found on the project website and on Facebook.

AOOS to Review Current Projects
and Update Strategic Plan
In preparation for its next five-year cooperative agreement with NOAA, AOOS has begun collecting input from stakeholders, reviewing its current suite of observing activities, and soliciting new project ideas for 2021-25. The cooperative agreement forms the framework for the next AOOS five-year strategic plan. AOOS is interested in hearing from Alaskans about emerging ocean and coastal issues and concerns, new and potential projects that fill gaps in ocean observations, and needs for new data tools and products for management and decision support. If you would like to provide input in this process, please review the Request for New Project Ideas announcement.

New OA Data Catalog


A list of known ocean acidification datasets in Alaska with links to available data is now available on the Alaska Ocean Acidification Network website. This has been a priority of the Alaska Ocean Acidification Network and will serve as a resource for scientists that are working to integrate and analyze conditions across time and space. The list includes 34 projects with the earliest data collected in 2008.

AOOS Welcomes New Board Members


Welcome to Lynn Palensky and Kenny Down,
who recently joined the AOOS Board of Directors.

Lynn started as the new Executive Director of the North Pacific Research Board in March and will represent NPRB on the AOOS board representing that research entity.  She brings 20-plus years of fisheries-related grants and program management experience, most recently with the Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Program of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council in Portland, OR.  Her engagement with multi-agency and multi-organization fish and wildlife programs in the Pacific Northwest includes issues of fish habitat, species interactions, ecosystem function, ocean and estuary science, climate change impacts, artificial production, harvest and fisheries enforcement, and food webs.

Kenny has been a member of the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council since 2015 and was appointed by the Council to serve as it's representative on the AOOS board. Kenny owns Seaquest Ventures, a small maritime contract and investment advisory company in Seattle. He worked from 2012-2018 as the President and CEO for one of the largest participants in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands hook-and-line catcher processor sector. Kenny has served as a Board member with the Freezer Longline Coalition and spent more than four years lobbying, organizing and leading national policy in support of low-impact fishing efforts.

AOOS Board Meeting
The AOOS Board met virtually May 14 to approve the core work plan for Year 5 of the AOOS cooperative agreement with NOAA that begins June 1, 2020. This year's core plan, at $2.7 million, includes continued funding for the new high frequency radars in the Bering Strait, as well as additional funds for glider transects in the Gulf of Alaska, and Bering and Chukchi Seas supporting agency management of fisheries and marine mammals.
 




About AOOS


The mission of AOOS is to address regional and national needs for ocean information, gather specific data on key coastal and ocean variables, and ensure timely and sustained dissemination and availability of these data.  

Copyright © 2019
Alaska Ocean Observing System, All rights reserved.

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to the Alaska Ocean Observing System list serve, or have expressed interest in learning more about AOOS.

Our mailing address is:
Alaska Ocean Observing System
1007 W. 3rd Ave Suite 100
Anchorage, AK  99501
Add us to your address book
 






This email was sent to <<Email Address>>
why did I get this?    unsubscribe from this list    update subscription preferences
Alaska Ocean Observing System · 1007 W. 3rd Ave Suite 100 · Anchorage, AK 99501 · USA