OOI Science Plan: Exciting Opportunities using OOI Data
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SECTION 2. Science Questions
The OOI cutting-edge technology and instrumentation enables novel and exciting research on a wide range of topics in the Earth and ocean sciences. The data can be used to investigate science questions directly or through the use of different models, or data can be used in support of additional process-based research projects. The high-level science themes identified in OOI program documents include: • • • • • •
Climate variability, ocean food webs, and biogeochemical cycles Ocean-atmosphere exchange Coastal ocean dynamics and ecosystems Turbulent mixing and biophysical interactions Global and plate-scale geodynamics Fluid-rock interactions and the sub-seafloor biosphere
While the OOI themes are broad and encompassing, specific science questions are at the heart of the research enabled by the OOI infrastructure. Below, we provide some examples of science questions, many of which are complex and multidisciplinary in nature, and among the suite of questions identified by the research community as requiring advanced ocean observing technologies and infrastructure. The OOI Program provides consistent, well-documented open access data, which are available to the entire scientific and educational community. The sensors deployed as part of the OOI were the measurements required to support a rich set of interdisciplinary science questions, focused on processes at the air-sea interface, the water column, and the sea floor, and interactions among these processes. However, no one owns any specific science questions. In the model of NASA satellite and the Argo array data, OOI data are available to everyone, and anyone can start with the germ of an idea to analyze OOI data and publish results. Data users determine the science that can be accomplished using OOI data, which allows for the possibility of serendipitous science. Interspersed in this section are examples of novel approaches and results by Earth and ocean scientists, which highlight the exciting science that has been or can be accomplished using OOI data.
How is climate change influencing ocean ecosystems? What is the ocean’s role in the
global carbon and other biogeochemical cycles? How have ocean biogeochemical and physical processes and their interactions contributed to today’s climate and its variability, and how will ocean systems change over the coming decades? What are the dominant physical, chemical, and biological processes that control the exchange of carbon and other dissolved and particulate material (e.g., gases, nutrients, organic matter) across the air-sea interface, through the water column, and to the seafloor? What is the spatial (coastal versus open ocean) and temporal variability of the ocean as a source or sink for atmospheric CO2? What is the seasonal to interannual variability in the biological carbon pump and particulate flux? What factors control the distributions of marine organisms? How are the oceans changing and what are the consequences for our living resources and food webs? How productive are our ocean ecosystems and how does primary productivity vary over space and time? How will the effects of climate change in the ocean, superimposed on other natural and anthropogenic stressors, alter the carrying capacity and recovery potential of marine ecosystems? 15
