Ocean Data Lab Nuggets Providing Foundation for Accessible Oceans

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution researcher Amy Bower and oceanographer Leslie Smith have teamed up to make ocean science accessible to the visually impaired. The team is using data nuggets—curated OOI data sets—created by the National Science Foundation funded Ocean Data Labs to design and evaluate auditory displays that can communicate ocean science. The team is using five data nuggets to work with and represent through sound, including the two-way transfer of carbon dioxide between the ocean and atmosphere, the seafloor falling several feet during the 2015 Axial Seamount volcanic eruption, and the reaction of microscopic marine organisms off the coast of Oregon during the 2017 total solar eclipse.  Read more about this Accessible Oceans project here.