OOI Science Plan: Exciting Opportunities using OOI Data
Version 1.1
‘LOOKING’ FORWARD The transformational nature of the OOI strategies showed considerable promise during the very early discussions of the elements that have evolved into the NSF’s full OOI program. Community planning was well-underway by the mid-1990’s. Work on the initial OOI Science Plan began in the 2001-02 time frame. Funds for OOI finally arrived in 2009, and deployment of the OOI components was completed by 2015. This document is the third Science plan (OOISP3) produced for the Initiative. It is an exciting, powerfully articulated blue-print for evolving use of the key infrastructural elements underpinning a forward-looking perspective on research/ educational programs developed since completion of OOI construction. At the outset of the OOI, the nominal lifetime for operation of OOI infrastructure was to be 25 years.
frame of the release of OOI-SP3. For example, the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainability (2021-2030) will be a major international opportunity to attract novel, bold collaborative efforts to push forward on many frontiers related to ocean investigations (https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=_F5g9uZv6YI). The Ocean Studies Board, of the US National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, is encouraging submission of transformative, multi-disciplinary ideas, “Ocean-Shots,” that will address scientific challenges for reaching Decade goals (https://www. nationalacademies.org/our-work/us-nationalcommittee-on-ocean-science-for-sustainabledevelopment-2021-2030). Selected “Ocean-Shots” will be featured in special webinars to provide a platform for sharing and aligning innovative research ideas across our overall ocean science community.
With the successes over the past two to three decades of the Argo Float Program, Ocean Obs, various Glider Programs, and operating OOI frameworks, it is clear that there has been a significant shift toward ocean observing programs that complement ship-based research in our community, with measurements acquired by semiautonomous mobile and fixed sensing platforms, all using some level of regular data transmission throughout the deployment. Given this multidecade progress, it is appropriate to muse on the future of a comparable duration, for which we can imagine evolving ocean science opportunities and alternative pathways. I am offering a slightly modified version of a conventional Forward by appending (in small letters) the word “looking” to an otherwise simple title.
One aspect of “Next Generation” Ocean Science will no doubt involve increasingly pervasive efforts to fully assess the characteristics and dynamic behavior of Marine Ecosystems, because they underpin most global, regional and local environmental “eco-services” provided to human beings by our planetary ocean. These oceanic ecosystems involve major, complex, interactions that buffer environments we depend upon for, among other things, absorbing greenhouse gases, and releasing significant oxygen into the atmosphere. To be fully understood, because the interactions are changing constantly, these systems must be studied from within the actual environment using a combination of real-time mobile sensing of many parameters, rapid communication, and comprehensive modeling for both assimilation and ultimate prediction.
Several engaging and potentially important developments in our greater Ocean Sciences Community are emerging in the approximate time-
We should not be shy about thinking boldly 1
