News 4 - Ocean Observatories Initiative

A Relationship Borne of OOI

By Darlene Trew crist | June 6, 2024 |

OOI Engineer Jennifer Batryn had traveled to Punta Arenas, Chile in October 2016, to help mobilize for the third deployment and recovery cruise of the Global Argentine Basin Array. Punta Arenas is home to numerous street dogs, including a pack that slept in front of the hotel where the National Science Foundation Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) team was staying. On the way to begin work the first morning, Batryn stopped to pet several of the dogs and happily encouraged one to follow her to the warehouse facility where the team was working. He snuck through the port security entrance and joined Batryn and the team at the warehouse for the morning. When Batryn went into town for lunch, he followed and waited patiently outside of the restaurant. He then followed Batryn back to the warehouse for the afternoon and to the hotel at the end of the day. This pattern continued for the next week and a half while the team built and prepared the moorings.

[media-caption path="https://oceanobservatories.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/IMG_20161016_162823687-scaled.jpg" link="#"] OOI Instrument Lead Jennifer Batryn with her Punta Arenas Street dog, Teddy, outside the hotel in Chile. [/media-caption][media-caption path="https://oceanobservatories.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/IMG_20161011_113630857-scaled.jpg" link="#"]Teddy relaxing (and waiting for pets) outside the warehouse in the Punta Arenas port facility.[/media-caption]

When it came time to start loading the R/V Nathaniel B Palmer, Batryn realized that this dog had weaseled its way into her heart and decided she wasn’t leaving Chile without him. (Editor’s note: After looking into Teddy’s eyes, it is easy to understand how this happened!). “Teddy had the sweetest and most laid-back personality. He loved getting belly rubs and pats but also was content napping on a piece of foam in the warehouse, completely unfazed by the forklift trucks and other commotion going on. He was also amazingly dirty from living on the streets and my hands would instantly get a black film on them after petting him, but there was no way I could say no to him, “said Batryn. She chose the name Teddy since he was like a big teddy bear and started looking into the many logistics necessary to bring him back home with her.

Batryn only had several days to figure everything out before boarding the ship for three weeks. Since there were no pet stores nearby, she walked to a large grocery store and purchased a collar, leash, and a large bag of dog food. She then found a local vet clinic through a web search and got the name and phone number of a local dogsitter from the port agent. With that information in hand, Batryn enlisted the help of a friendly hotel employee to make the necessary phone calls to schedule an appointment since her Spanish was limited. She lucked out and was able to arrange a vet appointment the next day and scheduled a taxi to pick her and Teddy up from the port and take them across town.

The next day was Teddy’s first day wearing a collar and leash. It took some getting used to as he watched the other street dogs running down the busy street chasing cars without being able to join in. It would be a day of many more firsts. When it came time for the taxi to pick Batryn and Teddy up from the port entrance, Teddy, who was used to chasing cars and not riding in one, wanted no part of getting inside the vehicle. The port security guard saw the struggle and kindly offered to help lift the nearly 60 lb. dog into the back of the taxi. During the stressful ride across town, Batryn tried to comfort Teddy. When they arrived at the vet office, the front desk assistant saw Batryn’s dirty hands and exclaimed, “Ahh, mecánica!” assuming the black film on her hands was due to work as a mechanic, and not the result of petting a dirty street dog.

Batryn had previously read that Chile is free of dog rabies and that rabies vaccines were not required from that origin, but she decided to play it safe to help ensure smooth entry into the United States. She had Teddy receive all the basic shots necessary for travel, as well as a rabies shot and a certificate from the vet that Teddy was cleared for travel. Since it would be mid-November by the time they flew back to New England together, Batryn also got a signed notice that Teddy was acclimated to cold temperatures, having lived outside on the streets of Punta Arenas. This would increase the chances that the airlines would allow Teddy to travel if air temperatures happened to dip on their planned travel day. Teddy then had to endure a second cab ride to the dog sitters where he would live for the next several weeks while Batryn was at sea.

The logistics of bringing Teddy back home continued for Batryn during her three weeks at sea. In her down time between mooring operations, she used the limited ship Wi-Fi to call family and friends back home. She coordinated with her mother in California to purchase a dog kennel suitable for airline travel and asked a friend who was flying down to join her for hiking afterwards to take the giant kennel as a second piece of checked luggage. Batryn also enlisted the help of an Argentinian guest student onboard the Palmer to help call the dog sitter back in Punta Arenas to have her measure Teddy for properly sizing a kennel. The sitter also offered to give Teddy a much-needed bath before his travel to the US. The sitter later described this process to Batryn in a mix of Spanish and English as the dirtiest bath he’s ever given, with the water coming off Teddy looking “like coffee”.

Air travel is not permitted for the first four weeks after receiving a rabies vaccine, but Batryn’s time at sea combined with her week of hiking with her friend turned out to be perfect for the human-canine match. After a successful cruise and hike, Batryn reunited with her dog, but there was a small hitch. The dog kennel that her friend brought down was borderline too small for Teddy and had the potential to be rejected based on the airline guidelines. Not to be deterred, Batryn called upon the good graces of her dog sitter who traded the new kennel for an older, larger one that would allow Teddy to be more comfortable during his nearly 24-hour journey to Boston.

[media-caption path="https://oceanobservatories.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/DSC_3365-scaled.jpg" link="#"]Jennifer’s layover in Santiago was long enough to allow for picking up Teddy from the separate cargo area and a nice pit stop for him outside before the next big flight.[/media-caption]

The big travel day went relatively smoothly. Due to the size of the new, larger kennel, Teddy had to fly with cargo on the first leg of the journey from Punta Arenas up to Santiago. That meant that Batryn had to exit the airport in Santiago to claim Teddy from a separate cargo area. Fortunately, a friendly cab driver outside the airport offered to walk with Batryn down the street to the cargo section. The next leg of the journey took Batryn and Teddy from Santiago, Chile, up to Miami, Florida. When claiming luggage to clear US customs, the large kennel again proved difficult as it was too large to fit on a standard luggage cart. Fortunately, a helpful airport employee helped load Teddy in his crate onto a larger airport cart and escorted them through customs. Much to Batryn’s surprise, they breezed through customs, despite bringing in a live animal from another country. The new team caught their final flight up to Boston and soon enough Batryn and Teddy were in Massachusetts on their way home to Cape Cod.

Once home, Teddy quickly settled into the idea of a more pampered life with comfortable beds, couches, regular meals, walks to the beach, and lots of attention. While he had to work through some initial separation anxiety, Teddy started coming into the LOSOS facility at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution after just a couple days of being in the US. Ever since, Teddy has become a gentle fixture at LOSOS, getting pets from everyone who passes by, and spreading Chilean hospitality and good cheer every day.

Pioneer MAB Providing Turbidity from OOI Core Fluorometers

By Darlene Trew crist | May 30, 2024 |

OOI is now providing telemetered turbidity measurements from the Coastal Pioneer Mid-Atlantic Bight (MAB) Array using Sea-Bird Scientific ECO triplet-w optical sensors. A test deployment showed that these instruments measured turbidity consistent with co-located turbidity meters that were recommended at the scientific community workshops. The results of the test deployment confirmed that OOI could satisfy the request for turbidity data with re-purposed instruments already in the suite of OOI core sensors. OOI has used ECO triplet-w optical sensors to measure chlorophyll a, CDOM fluorescence, and optical backscatter. This April, ECO triplet sensors were deployed with a secondary calibration from the vendor to convert backscatter channel (700 nm wavelength) measurements to turbidity in Nephelometric Turbidity Units (NTUs).

[media-caption path="https://oceanobservatories.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Screenshot-2024-05-30-at-4.33.23-PM.png" link="#"]Figure 1: Comparison of turbidity recorded during Coastal Pioneer MAB Array At-Sea Test 3 from a Seapoint turbidity meter and a Sea Bird ECO triplet optical sensor. Data shown was recorded in March 2023 at a depth of 35 m.[/media-caption]

To conduct the test deployment, turbidity measurements were recorded every 15 or 30 minutes from 1-minute bursts of sampling at 1 sample per second (1 Hz) by both the ECO-triplet and co-located community-recommended turbidity meters. Turbidity in NTUs from the ECO triplet was calculated by applying a vendor-supplied scaling factor to the raw voltage counts minus the dark counts. The requested turbidity meters reported their measurements as a mean of the sample burst measurements, so the mean of each ECO triplet sample burst was computed for comparison. The burst means from ECO triplets were compared with the other turbidity meter measurements at the same location and depths. A time series comparison from 35 m depth during March 2023 showed a mean difference of 0.2 NTU between the two instruments. The standard deviation of the difference at 35 m depth was 1.2 NTU (Fig. 1). The March 2023 comparison at 7 m depth showed a mean difference of 0.1 NTU. The standard deviation of the difference at 7 m depth was 0.06 NTU. Turbidity measurements recorded before and after a CTD cast at the start of the test deployment were also within 0.15 NTUs of the mean turbidity measurements in the surface mixed layer and bottom layer from a rosette-mounted Wet Labs FLNTURTD. The full report on the test deployment, At-Sea Test 3, is available upon request. Based on the results of the test deployment, the OOI Program determined that the ECO triplet-w optical sensors with a secondary calibration could deliver good quality turbidity data.

ECO triplet optical sensors deployed as part of the Coastal Pioneer MAB Array now allow OOI to serve turbidity data from all 3 surface moorings at 7 m depth and 1 m above the seafloor. The use of existing OOI core sensors simplified integration into the instrument platforms, since additional ECO triplets only had to be added to seafloor nodes, and it streamlined the process of serving data, since existing sensor processing code could be reworked to provide turbidity data. Turbidity data delivered by OOI include all samples recorded during a sample burst so that data users can apply their preferred aggregation method. Since April, the ECO triplets on the near-surface platforms (Fig. 2, right) have been sampling at 1 Hz for bursts of 3 minutes four times an hour, and on the seafloor nodes (Fig. 2, left) the sensor samples at 1 Hz for 17 minutes once an hour. Data users can view telemetered turbidity data here: Coastal Pioneer MAB Array turbidity on Data Explorer.

[media-caption path="https://oceanobservatories.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Screenshot-2024-05-30-at-4.32.51-PM.png" link="#"]Figure 2: Sea Bird ECO triplet optical sensors that are measuring turbidity are mounted on the Seafloor Multi-Function Node (left) and on the Near-Surface Instrument Frame (right, yellow box) of the Coastal Pioneer MAB Surface Moorings: Northern, Southern, and Central. The copper-covered “Y” is a wiper blade that prevents growth and marine debris from accumulating over the oval sensor windows. Credit: Sawyer Newman © WHOI. [/media-caption]

Ian Black: Taking Inspiration from OOI

By Darlene Trew crist | May 30, 2024 |

As an undergraduate at Oregon State University (OSU), Ian Black attended an oceanography course taught by the OOI’s Coastal Endurance Array Principal Investigator Ed Dever, where he was introduced to key oceanographic concepts and the observational capacity of the OOI. Black was so intrigued by the work that he approached Dever and asked about an internship with the OOI Endurance Array.

“Initially it was scraping barnacles, turning wrenches, very dirty and manual labor,” explained Black. “And I liked it. The project and its mission made sense to me.” The OOI provided Black with his first experience at sea, the Regional Cabled Array’s VISIONs cruise in 2015, where he sailed with another OOI alum Katie Bigham. Toward the end of his internship and undergraduate program, Black was interested in continuing to work on the Endurance Array and was encouraged to pursue a master’s degree. Throughout graduate school, Black continued to work part-time on the Endurance Array, continuing to scrape barnacles, but also gained some experience in electronics and coding.

In 2018, Black received his M.S. in Marine Resource Management and was hired on as an Endurance Array technician. Between 2018 and 2021, Black focused primarily on the Coastal Surface Piercing Profilers that are deployed at the CE01, CE02, CE06, and CE07 sites located off Oregon and Washington. He also provided assistance with the large coastal surface moorings and gliders during downtime and cruises.

Not one to sit still too long, Black decided to pursue a PhD, again at OSU in 2021. Black was originally brought on by his co-advisors, Dr. Clare Reimers and Dr. Maria Kavanaugh, to focus on the bio-optical sensors that are to be deployed on the NSF’s new Regional Class Research Vessels. While waiting for the deployment of these vessels, Black has developed a newfound interest in marine heatwaves. Currently, he and his advisors have a manuscript under review where they use OOI Endurance Array data to explore the biophysical impacts of marine heatwaves on phytoplankton.

[media-caption path="https://oceanobservatories.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Profiler-Victory-2-scaled.jpg" link="#"]Left to Right: Jon Fram, Ian Black, Alex Wick, and Steve Lambert pose with a recently recovered profiler. Credit: Oregon State University.[/media-caption]

For the next chapter in his PhD dissertation, Black plans to again use OOI data from the Endurance Array to explore the finer scale effects of marine heatwaves over the Oregon shelf. “There are a lot of high-resolution data products from the moorings, profilers, and gliders that could be combined to tell an interesting story”, Black said. In particular, there are some “some really interesting still images from the camera located at the shelf site that coincide with events or phenomena that are commonly introduced in oceanography courses, much like the class Ed (Dever) taught all those years ago. Seeing these things with real data really reinforces those core oceanographic concepts.” Black hopes that this work will end up as a second manuscript, but at the very least “the code and results can be used as a tool, perhaps in the classroom, to show students that the concepts they learn about are supported with modern data.” Black added that has been instrumental in his PhD research. He uses it between several times per week to review, process, and assess data.

“The OOI Endurance Team has been supportive at every stage of my career so far, not just the OOI ones. “It’s a great place to work and Ed (Dever) and Jon (Fram) work hard to keep people invested in the project.” The few years working as a technician and almost decade of interaction with the OOI has been an important part of my development. Black added, “I even missed the camaraderie so much that I recently volunteered to join the 20^th deployment of the Endurance Array (EA20) this past spring.” As an undergraduate, Black’s first Endurance cruise was EA5.

Black brings an interesting perspective to OOI data. He now looks at it from the vantage point of a scientist and how it can be used to answer questions, as well as from an engineering viewpoint on how data are collected in such a unforgiving marine environment. “The amount of data offered by OOI is daunting and is going to take anyone, regardless of data analysis skill level, a long time to look through. In my opinion, it is particularly important for graduate students, who might have more time to look at the data, to just start looking to see what they can find.” Black gave an example of the richness and uniqueness of data available. In 2019 as the Blob 2.0 marine heatwave was expanding in the Northeast Pacific, he was deploying an OOI profiler at the Oregon shelf site (CE02SHSP). Due to platform malfunction, operator error, or a combination of, the profiler decided to surface every 20 minutes for 2 days instead of the typical 12 hours for 2 months. Black hopes that something interesting could be found in this data and thinks it could make for a good term project for a class. “It’s very interesting data and it’s public’s data.” If Black stays in academia, he plans to encourage his students to explore open data collected by groups such as the NSF’s OOI.

Zotero Now Connected to OOI-Related Publications

By Darlene Trew crist | May 28, 2024 |

The OOI is now using Zotero as a back-end publications tool that is helping make OOI-related publications easier to find, sort, and share. Since 2017, OOI has been keeping track of peer-reviewed scientific publications that either use OOI data or cite OOI as a resource for their findings. The list is closing in on 400, with 302 lead authors, representing 166 institutions from 26 countries making an efficient tracking, sorting, and accessing method essential.

The switch to Zotero was made to enhance users’ experience and to ensure easy tracking of OOI-related work. “For Zotero users, this tool offers many more import and editing options that will adapt to many workflows,” said Data Librarian Audrey A. Mickle at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. “Zotero offers more features and adaptability for users, such as adding items directly with a browser extension or choosing between web based and local clients, than were available with our previous publications sorting tool. By making this switch, we will enhance users’ experience while improving our own collecting, sorting, and posting processes.”

OOI is joining a huge Zotero community. At least 7.5 million people have a Zotero account, which offers a similar platform to other commonly used bibliographic tools. This uniformity makes it easier for people to learn how to keep bibliographies on Zotero.

Added Jim Edson, Principal Investigator for OOI’s Program Management Office, “OOI is always striving to improve how we operate by making things more efficient, reliable, and durable. Zotero meets these objectives, and we hope OOI data users check out our latest publication tracker supported by Zotero.”

If you would like to add a publication that we may have missed, please let us know here and we will add it to our list.

Close-up View of An Active Hydrothermal Vent Now Easily Accessible

By Darlene Trew crist | May 22, 2024 |

Now accessible on OOI’s Data Explorer: 47,000 hours of video from a high-definition (HD) camera at an active hydrothermal vent and underwater volcano, 1500 meters below the ocean’s surface!

The HD camera has been streaming live video since 2015, offering a close-up look at what’s been happening within the caldera of Axial Seamount, a highly active underwater volcano about 300 miles off the coast of Oregon. The SubC 1Cam video camera was modified by the Applied Physics Lab (APL) at the University of Washington for deployment on OOI’s Regional Cabled Array (RCA) in the NE Pacific Ocean. The camera is connected via a roughly 4 km dedicated 10 Gb extension cable that runs across the caldera from the camera in the ASHES vent field to Primary Node PN3B located near the eastern edge of the caldera. From there imagery are streamed at the speed of light over 521 km of submarine fiber optic cable to the shore station in Pacific City, OR.

[media-caption path="https://oceanobservatories.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/HD-Camera.jpg" link="#"]The HD camera (orange triangular frame) images the 14 ft-tall actively venting hot spring deposit ‘Mushroom’ located within the caldera of Axial Seamount. Credit: NSF-OOI/UW/CSSF; Dive R1730; V14.[/media-caption]

Up until recently, the footage has been available on the OOI raw data server in 14-minute increments as both high resolution MOV files and compressed MP4 formats, but the imagery was not easily reviewed or searchable. To make this unique nearly decade of footage more readily available to researchers, a new gallery feature on Data Explorer was created that allows researchers to easily view, search, and download the stunning video. All files created over each 24-hour period are used to create a sped-up, compressed, and time-stamped preview video allowing rapid overviews of daily events. Associated metadata and quick links provide access to the raw and log files, and a higher-resolution version of the preview is also available for download.

“The camera faces an active hydrothermal edifice called Mushroom that is completely encased in a dense biological community thriving in fluids emanating from the chimney walls,” explained Michael Vardaro, a research consultant for the RCA, who has been involved in OOI since construction began in 2011. “Mushroom hosts an active chemosynthetic community with 300 ºC hydrothermal fluids streaming out its top and from a small, highly dynamic chimney at its base. The camera allows the research community to see how the flow of hydrothermal fluid and the activity of all the different creatures living on it change over time, as well as the growth and evolution of the sulfide structure.”

Vardaro also said that the video allows viewers to watch what is happening in the short term. “You can catch predation events that include little scale worms nibbling on the gills of the tube worms. You can observe sea spiders [pycnogonids] crawling around the base of the chimney and watch as new vent openings develop. It’s a very changeable environment, because as the hydrothermal fluid hits the cold seawater, the metals and other chemicals dissolved in the superheated water precipitate out as solid minerals, creating fragile projections that then repeatedly crumble over time as the flow changes. The camera imagery provides important insights into linkages among geological, chemical and biological process at seismically active underwater volcano that has erupted in 1998, 2011, and 2015 and is poised to erupt again.”

[embed]https://youtu.be/oiDxkHWB3rI[/embed]

The chimney stands about 14 feet high. The camera sits on a tripod at the base of the chimney with a pan and tilt unit. It follows an automated, 14-minute routine with the camera moving up, down and across the chimney and water column, stopping at pre-selected key areas of interest. What’s more, the APL team onshore can stop and alter the viewpoint if something interesting is happening or a question needs answering. “The Data Explorer now offers a hugely rich dataset of video footage extremely rare in mid-ocean ridge settings that offers a unique window into what is happening on the seafloor at an active hydrothermal vent site,” Vardaro added. “As development on the gallery continues, we also plan to add annotations and eventually incorporate machine learning and event detection to tag interesting biological features or significant changes to the site”.

In addition to the Data Explorer access, the live video stream is available every three hours for 14-minutes online (at 2:00, 5:00, 8:00, and 11:00 EDT & PDT). The camera also runs for 24 hours straight on the 10^th and 20^th of the month, with a 72-hour run on the 1^st-3^rd of the month as a means of gaining a fuller picture of activity at the site.

[embed]https://youtu.be/VjqduffxNyU[/embed]

Funds Available for Using OOI and Other Long-Term Research Associated Data

By Darlene Trew crist | May 20, 2024 |

On April 23, 2024, the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) issued a Dear Colleague Letter: Using Long-Term Research Associated Data (ULTRA-Data). This program encourages proposals that take advantage of the multidisciplinary, long-time series measurements through programs such as the Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI), the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON), and Long-term Ecological Research (LTER) and others that collect environmental data, make observations, test hypotheses, and, in some cases, conduct experiments.

Funding for the ULTRA-Data proposals will come from participating NSF divisions and offices including the Geosciences and Biological Sciences. OOI PIs are able to participant in proposal preparation and, if funded, research activities, as long as the work is separate from OOI-supported activities. NSF will look closely at submissions that include OOI personnel, so discussion before submission is strongly recommended.

Widespread and Increasing Near-bottom Hypoxia in Pacific NW Coastal Ocean

By Darlene Trew crist | May 15, 2024 |

Barth et al. (2024) examined the 2021 summer upwelling season off the United States Pacific Northwest coast. Upwelling was unusually strong leading to widespread near-bottom, low-oxygen waters. During summer 2021, an unprecedented number of ship- and underwater glider-based measurements of dissolved oxygen were made in this region. Near-bottom hypoxia, that is dissolved oxygen less than 61 µmol kg−1 and harmful to marine animals, was observed over nearly half of the continental shelf inshore of the 200-m isobath, covering 15,500 square kilometers. A mid-shelf ribbon with near-bottom, dissolved oxygen less than 50 µmol kg−1 extended for 450 km off north-central Oregon and Washington. Spatial patterns in near-bottom oxygen are related to the continental shelf width and other features of the region. Maps of near-bottom oxygen since 1950 show a consistent trend toward lower oxygen levels over time. The fraction of near-bottom water inshore of the 200-m isobath that is hypoxic on average during the summer upwelling season increases over time from nearly absent (2%) in 1950–1980, to 24% in 2009–2018, compared with 56% during the anomalously strong upwelling conditions in 2021. Widespread and increasing near-bottom hypoxia is consistent with increased upwelling-favorable wind forcing under climate change.

As part of their analysis, Barth et al. (2024) used NSF OOI glider data from 2021 along the Newport Hydrographic Line along with other data indicated in Fig x.. Near-bottom dissolved oxygen data from each survey as a function of time show the typical decrease of minimum values as the summer hypoxia season proceeds (Fig. x). High DO values are measured by the OOI gliders early in the upwelling season when winds were relaxed or downwelling-favorable early in the upwelling season, and by the Oregon Department of Fisheries and Wildlife (ODFW) survey that focused on very shallow (water depths of 50 m or less), inshore waters.

[media-caption path="https://oceanobservatories.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Endurance-Figure.png" link="#"]Figure x Near-bottom dissolved oxygen as a function of time during the 2021 summer upwelling season.[/media-caption]

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Reference:

Barth, J.A., Pierce, S.D., Carter, B.R. et al. Widespread and increasing near-bottom hypoxia in the coastal ocean off the United States Pacific Northwest. Sci Rep 14, 3798 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-54476-0

OOI Data Sonification

By Darlene Trew crist | May 13, 2024 |

The assumption that quantitative data can be well represented not only in charts and graphs, but by increasingly sophisticated visual displays, is often taken for granted. However, researchers, instructors, and curators of museums and science centers also recognize that even the most sophisticated visual displays are inaccessible to those with low-vision or blindness. There is also the potential for alternative data presentation methods to improve understanding of complex data for sighted individuals. With these considerations in mind, a team led by Dr. Bower (WHOI) has pursued the creation of auditory displays or “data sonifications” using multi-disciplinary U.S. National Science Foundation Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) data sets as the basis. The results to date from the NSF-funded data sonification project are reported in a recent publication by Smith et al. (2024).

[media-caption path="https://oceanobservatories.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Data-Sonification-figure.png" link="#"]Figure 1. Time series data from two data nuggets created by Ocean Data Labs that were used for sonification. Surface meteorology during the passage of hurricane Hermine over the Pioneer Array in 2016 (upper). The CO2 flux between ocean and atmosphere for both Pioneer (open circles) and Endurance Arrays during 2017 (lower).[/media-caption]

Data sonification involves the mapping of quantitative data from its original form to audio signals in order to communicate complex information content. The project team was interested in using actual ocean data spanning a variety of oceanographic disciplines. Time series data produced by OOI sensors provide an excellent starting point. In particular, the Ocean Data Labs group at Rutgers has reviewed OOI data and created a set of “data nuggets” that are appropriate for sonification (Greengrove et al., 2020). The data nuggets comprise a broad range of oceanographic phenomena observed by OOI sensors, including response to a storm, the diurnal migration of zooplankton, a volcanic eruption, and the flux of CO2 between ocean and atmosphere.

The project team used a rigorous approach to developing and refining the auditory presentations. Starting with a set of learning objectives for each data nugget, a multi-step process was used to create the sonification. First, oceanographers were interviewed to establish the important points to be conveyed for a given data nugget. Next, classroom instructors were interviewed to get feedback on the most effective approaches to using sound to explain data properties. A sound designer then created an initial mapping of the data to sound, which was reviewed by a representative group of researchers, instructors, and blind and visually impaired listeners. After additional rounds of refinement and feedback, the prototype sonifications are now available. Two auditory displays utilizing Pioneer Array data (Fig. 1) are available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8162769 and https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8173880 for CO2 flux and storm response, respectively. Other examples can be found in Smith et al. (2024). The sonifications will be evaluated broadly using an on-line survey and by a “live audience” at museums and science centers.

This project is unique in exploiting the rich OOI data set and making ocean science highlights available to a broad community of students and the general public. A significant aspect of the work, as pointed out by the authors, is the systematic and inclusive approach used to develop the data sonifications. Results of the museum testing phase in 2024 will be awaited with great anticipation.

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References:

Greengrove, C., S. Lichtenwalner, H.I. Palevsky, A. Pfeiffer-Herbert, S. Severmann, D. Soule, S. Murphy, L.M. Smith and K. Yarincik, 2020. Using authenticated data from NSF’s Ocean Observatories Initiative in undergraduate teaching, Oceanography, 33(1), 62-73.

Smith, L.M., A. Bower, J. Roberts, J. Bellona and J. Li, 2024. Expanding access to ocean science through inclusively designed data sonifications, Oceanography, 36(4), 96-101.

Edson Encourages Federal Agencies to Use OOI Data

By Darlene Trew crist | May 6, 2024 |

The U.S. National Science Foundation Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) Program Management Office Principal Investigator Jim Edson was invited to Pasadena, CA in April to present to a group of 160+ of experts who use satellite data to study the planetary boundary layer (PBL) over land, sea, and ice. These experts use observations and modeling to determine the PBL and represented an alphabet soup of federal agencies – NASA, NOAA, CLIVAR, DOE, ONR and NCAR. Edson took the opportunity to introduce them to OOI.

The attendees came together for NASA’s Decadal Survey Planetary Boundary Layer Incubation Community Meeting. Edson gave a presentation about observing the marine PBL using OOI and its partnership with the National Data Buoy Center and OceanSITES as examples of how to build an ocean network of observations.

“This presentation was one of my ongoing efforts to share knowledge about OOI and the data it can deliver,” said Edson. “By focusing on how valuable and rich the available data are, I hoped to re-enforce to our colleagues at these various agencies and institutions that OOI data are an important source for satellite calibration and validation activities over the open ocean. This represents only one of multiple ways that OOI can be used to clarify our understanding of what is going on in the rapidly changing marine environment.”

RCA to be Offline on May 6 for Maintenance