Posts by Amber Coogan
CC-CREW Students Tour OOI’s LOSOS Facility at WHOI
Last week, OOI hosted a group of students from the Community College Comprehensive Research Experience at WHOI (CC-CREW) for a tour of the Lab for Ocean Sensors and Observing Systems (LOSOS). The visit provided students with an up-close look at OOI equipment, including oceanographic sensors and mooring components, and included discussions about career paths in ocean science and technology.
CC-CREW is a 9-week paid summer program designed to introduce local community college students to STEM pathways (particularly in ocean science and geoscience) through immersive research experiences and facility tours at WHOI. The program also supports students in planning their transition from community college to four-year institutions and how to navigate educational opportunities that lead to careers in STEM and related fields.
Originally created to broaden participation in the geosciences, CC-CREW also serves a critical role in strengthening the local workforce. Many students in the program are passionate about pursuing careers that keep them rooted in the region, and tours like this one at OOI highlight the kinds of impactful, local career paths available in marine science and engineering.
[caption id="attachment_36707" align="alignnone" width="640"] WHOI Principal Engineer Sheri White (center) describes the design and purpose of the instrumented surface buoys (background) used in the OOI Program. Photo courtesy of CC-CREW[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_36708" align="alignnone" width="480"]
WHOI Senior Engineering Assistant Diana Wickman (right) describes the capabilities of OOI ocean gliders. Photo courtesy of CC-CREW[/caption]
For more information on OOI ocean gliders click here.
Read MoreEnhancing Infrastructure Usability: Updates to the OOI Platforms and Nodes Page
OOI has implemented a series of significant updates to its Platforms and Nodes webpage, aimed at improving sensor usage traceability, infrastructure identification, and research reproducibility. These enhancements directly support the scientific community’s need for clear, accessible metadata and a more streamline connection between OOI platforms and the data they produce.
The updated Platforms and Nodes List provides a complete and structured inventory of all deployed infrastructure across the OOI’s Coastal, Global, and Cabled arrays. Each array name links to a comprehensive description of its design, geographic focus, and research themes. Individual platforms are now associated with dedicated landing pages that correspond to their official Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) which establishes a clear and citable connection between physical infrastructure and the data it generates.
These platform-specific landing pages serve as centralized reference hub for each infrastructure component. They include standardized citation guidance to support accurate attribution, direct access to relevant datasets and data portals, and detailed descriptions that place each platform in scientific and operational context. Each page also features a complete list of associated instruments, with links directing users to either the OOI Data Explorer or the appropriate data access interface, facilitating efficient navigation to raw and derived data streams.
These updates provide researchers with a more cohesive and transparent framework for data discovery and usage. By enabling precise cross-referencing of platforms, instruments, and datasets, the new infrastructure makes it easier to do many types of scientific research, including tracking changes over time, checking models against in situ data, studying specific ocean processes across platforms, and combining data from different platforms for more in-depth analysis.
The improvements reflect OOI’s ongoing commitment to making its data and infrastructure more FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable). By reinforcing the connection between deployed equipment and accessible data products, this update enhances reproducibility and strengthens the integrity of research conducted using OOI assets.
Researchers are encouraged to explore the updated Platforms and Nodes page and incorporate these resources into their data workflows, citation practices, and project planning. These tools aim to simplify the process of finding data while also enabling more detailed and meaningful research using OOI’s distributed network of ocean observing systems.
Read MoreSecuring and serving data that drives global research insights
Dell AI Factory was chosen by Oregon State University to manage protect and disperse vast amounts of critical data to support vital global scientific research for the National Science Foundation (NSF) funded Ocean Observatories Initiative. And it’s now able to future-proof infrastructure to keep pace with AI advancements and protect itself from complex cyber threats. Read more from Dell Technologies.
Read MoreCoastal Weather Buoy Enhancement
On May 9, 2025, a research-enhanced weather buoy was deployed at 40.50°N 69.25°W for an expected observing period of one year. Working alongside a team of engineers and technicians at the National Data Buoy Center (NDBC), Dr. Yolande Serra’s (UW/CICOES) project has enhanced weather buoy 44008 with additional surface and subsurface sensors. Read more from Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory.
Read MoreNSF CI Compass: OOI Data Delivery User Experience
During a recent NSF CI Compass webinar, Jeffrey Glatstein, OOI Senior Manager of Cyberinfrastructure at WHOI, gave an inside look at how OOI has been rethinking and improving its approach to data delivery. His talk, “Data Delivery User Experience: Is it important to your facility?”, explored how the team has been working to make OOI’s massive data sets more accessible and usable for researchers and stakeholders.
Jeff oversees data systems that handle real-time streams from 900 instruments spread across 80 platforms. Altogether, OOI manages over 175 billion rows of data, 2.8 petabytes of raw data, and more than 13,000 hours of video. Jeff’s team is responsible for ensuring it remains readily accessible and usable by the research community.
Before the overhaul, users relied on a legacy portal called OOINET. While it provided basic functionality, it wasn’t always user-friendly. Users frequently cited long wait times, confusing interfaces, and difficulty locating specific data. These challenges sparked a full-scale effort, beginning in 2018, to improve the user experience from the ground up.
The approach placed strong emphasis on the user experience. Jeff and his team conducted interviews, reviewed previous feedback, and dug into system analytics to identify areas needing improvement. They looked at a range of technical solutions before ultimately partnering with Axiom Data Science to implement a new data access platform – what we now know as the OOI Data Explorer.
The webinar highlighted some of the major tech upgrades involved: Kafka for better message streaming, JupyterHub for advanced data access, Grafana for monitoring, and ERDDAP to improve data delivery. But what really set the project apart was its focus on making things easier and faster for users. Instead of relying only on on-demand plots, the new Data Explorer offers pre-generated visualizations and quicker access to datasets. Search tools were also upgraded, making it easier for users to find exactly what they’re looking for.
Scientists are now able to submit more precise queries, navigate the system with greater confidence, and achieve more effective search results. Jeff noted that the team remains focused on further enhancing the interface, broadening search capabilities, and streamlining the data download process to ensure an even better user experience.
Although Data Explorer has already delivered significant improvements, Jeff emphasized that OOI remains committed to continually enhancing overall functionality. These ongoing efforts reflect a broader mission: ensuring that the vast and valuable data collected from the ocean is not only accessible but also readily usable by the scientific community.
[caption id="attachment_36634" align="alignnone" width="640"] Credit: Jeffrey Glatstein[/caption]
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Credit: Jeffrey Glatstein[/caption]
Read More Why OOI Matters on World Oceans Day
Dear OOI Community,
Today, on World Oceans Day, we join scientists, educators, policymakers, and citizens around the globe to recognize the ocean’s critical role in sustaining life on Earth. From regulating climate to supporting biodiversity, the ocean is at the heart of our planet’s health and understanding it has never been more urgent.
That’s where the Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) comes into play.
For over a decade, OOI has enabled transformative ocean science by delivering open, continuous, research-quality data from some of the most dynamic and remote marine environments. Our coastal, global, and cabled arrays provide essential data that fuels research on everything from climate variability to marine heatwaves, earthquakes, ocean acidification, and more. OOI data supports students in classrooms, early-career researchers, seasoned scientists, and international partners.
But this World Oceans Day arrives with a tremendous amount of uncertainty.
As you may know, the President’s FY2026 budget request for the National Science Foundation (NSF) proposes severe cuts to OOI funding, up to 80%, along with language signaling possible decommissioning. These cuts would effectively end our ability to deploy sensors, maintain arrays, and collect new data. It would mark a significant loss for the ocean science community, especially at a time when sustained ocean observations are more important than ever.
Despite these challenges, our mission remains clear: support ocean discovery, empower data-driven research, and serve the broader public good. We continue to carry out fieldwork and deliver data that advances science every day.
On this World Oceans Day, we invite you to explore OOI data, share your stories of how you use it, and help us raise awareness by using #OOIDataMatters on social media. Let’s reaffirm why long-term ocean observation is a public investment that’s worth protecting.
Thank you for being part of this community. We will share updates as new information becomes available.
With appreciation,
Jim Edson
Read MoreAdvancing Mooring Technology for Long-Term Ocean Observation
Advances in oceanographic mooring technology are critical to sustaining long-term, high-quality observations in some of the planet’s harshest environments. Moorings must now operate reliably over extended deployments, support increasingly sophisticated instrumentation, and withstand the growing impacts of extreme weather. To better understand recent progress and ongoing challenges in this field, we spoke with Alex Franks, Research Engineer at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and a key contributor to the Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI).
Over the past three years, Franks and his team have introduced significant upgrades to OOI infrastructure – most notably enhancements in satellite telemetry, power generation and management systems, and the structural resilience of both surface and subsurface moorings. These improvements aim not only to extend deployment lifetimes and reduce maintenance needs but also to expand the scientific capabilities of moorings by accommodating higher-bandwidth data streams and more energy-intensive instruments.
This Q&A offers a detailed look at the evolving strategies behind mooring system engineering and the practical steps being taken to meet both scientific demands and environmental challenges.
- In the last 3 years, what have been the most notable improvements in remotely diagnosing and fixing mooring issues?
The biggest upgrade we’ve implemented recently is a new satellite telemetry module called the “Stream +” (Stream Plus). This allows us to communicate with the buoys in a faster and more streamlined manner. I would compare the upgrade being the difference between dialup and high-speed internet. This unit was originally tested on the Irminger Sea Surface Mooring deployed in 2024 and has now been deployed at the Pioneer Array on the Central Surface Mooring and one of the Profiler Moorings. With this increased ability to troubleshoot and interact, we are able to support high bandwidth instrumentation like the Mclane IFCB (Imaging Flow Cytobot) which takes pictures of phytoplankton in real time. We are able to download a subset of the images and adjust camera focus remotely now. OOI can now also accommodate proposals for more high bandwidth instrumentation on the buoy systems.
- What new features are you currently developing to further improve mooring system reliability?
The OOI Electrical Engineering group is currently focusing on reducing power consumption and increasing reliability of power generation systems on the Surface Moorings. Several systems are being optimized including individual instrument power supplies and Surface Mooring seabed-located multifunction node (MFN) power transmission. We are also upgrading the solar panels to harvest even more energy from the sun during long deployments. Lastly, the wind turbines on the Surface Moorings have been further ruggedized to help withstand the 20-meter waves and hurricane force winds that we observe at our global sites. A test of that redesign is underway at the Pioneer Array. All of these optimizations and upgrades will result in a mooring that can accommodate new power-hungry instrumentation, exceed our current sampling scheme, and withstand doldrums or high latitude winter with little to no solar generation.
At OOI we are also starting to think about more onboard computing power, more data storage, and more expandability in terms of available ports for new instrumentation. We always have our eye on streamlining our current electronics.
- Looking ahead, what do you see as the next major breakthrough in mooring technology?
I’m looking forward to testing solid state batteries as they are developed for use on mooring systems. The benefits of lithium with less safety concerns are very interesting to me. Losing battery weight and gaining more usable energy storage is a very attractive prospect.
- Are there any upcoming field tests or deployments that you’re particularly excited about?
OOI is partnering with Sandia Labs and the Department of Energy to develop and deploy a prototype of a wave energy converter on the Central Surface Mooring in fall of 2025. This device will be situated inside the buoy and convert wave motion into mooring power as proof of concept. This project has been going on for a few years now and it’s very rewarding to see it coming to fruition.
Advancements in mooring technology are directly improving data quality, reliability, and access for long-term ocean observations.
To explore available datasets and learn more about current system capabilities, visit oceanobservatories.org.
[caption id="attachment_36486" align="alignnone" width="320"]
Compass characterization procedure at the LOSOS building. Pictured: Alex Franks, WHOI[/caption]
Read More Oceanic Biogeochemical Sensor Networks: 2025 Market Surge & Next-Gen Tech Unveiled
Scientists use salinity to trace changes in the US Northeast Coastal Ocean
Woods Hole, Mass. (May 19, 2025) — The near-bottom water on the U.S. Northeast continental shelf provides a critical cold-water habitat for the rich regional marine ecosystem. This “cold pool” preserves winter temperatures, even when waters become too warm or salty elsewhere during the summer. Read more from EurekAlert.
Read MoreOpen Access, Open Ocean: Marking 75 Years of NSF Through Sustained Ocean Observation
This week, the OOI joins the scientific community in celebrating the 75th anniversary of the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF). This milestone marks decades of national investment in science, innovation, and public benefit.
OOI exists because of NSF’s vision and support. Our mission, delivering long-term, openly accessible ocean data, reflects a shared commitment to expanding scientific knowledge and ensuring that access to that knowledge is equitable, inclusive, and available to all.
Open Access Data: A Shared Commitment
The NSF’s mission is rooted in the belief that the progress of science should benefit all and be free from barriers to participation. OOI carries this forward through its core function: providing open access to high-resolution oceanographic data collected from some of the most remote and dynamic regions of the ocean.
OOI’s infrastructure, which spans cabled, coastal, and global sites, captures continuous, multi-dimensional data on key ocean processes. This data, ranging from temperature and salinity to seafloor seismic activity, is made freely available in near real time to anyone: scientists, educators, students, and the public.
For both OOI and NSF, access to data isn’t just a technical feature, it’s a fundamental value. Transparency, inclusivity, and public benefit are central to how we operate.
Investing in Infrastructure
NSF invests in strengthening the nation’s ability to conduct research and turn scientific insights into benefits for society. OOI supports this by maintaining a robust, continuously operating network of ocean sensors and platforms. This infrastructure enables:
- Collaborative research across institutions and disciplines
- Technology testing and innovation in extreme marine environments
- Educational engagement using real-world datasets
- Data-driven decision-making on ocean and climate issues
OOI’s open access model makes it possible for anyone, from seasoned scientists to high school students, to use ocean data to ask questions and find answers.
A Model for Public Science
In a time when access to credible, timely data is more important than ever, OOI’s approach serves as a model for how federally funded science can empower public knowledge and innovation. By making data easier to access and use, we help to ensure that science reaches more people and that the benefits of NSF-funded research are shared more broadly.
Looking Ahead: Sustaining Discovery
As the NSF celebrates 75 years, we acknowledge its enduring contributions to scientific advancement and public understanding. Its support for open, collaborative research continues to play a crucial role in driving discovery and responding to the evolving questions shaping science today.
With the continued support of the NSF, OOI is honored to play a role in this shared mission. We remain committed to advancing ocean science, making ocean data widely accessible, and deepening understanding of the ocean’s impact on our planet.
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