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Note from the Chief
What a great week of science, celebration, and knowledge absorption during AGU. Congratulations to Argo on their 2 millionth profile. As the article below indicates, we celebrated with cake and words of congratulations from NOAA leadership. The following day we released the 2018 Arctic Report Card describing the continuing and remarkable changes in the Arctic. OOMD Program Managers and staff participated in, and lead, innumerable AGU activities. I was very pleased to meet with several of you... wish I had more time to chat about the many OOMD projects who were conveying their findings at AGU.
With AGU behind us we are in full preparation for the holiday period and the new year. While the administration debates continued operations of some fraction of the U.S. government (including NOAA!), we are planning for a very busy new year. In early January, we will be internally reviewing FY18 progress and planned FY19 activities of many of our ocean projects. Several of us will be in Seattle in late January to discuss our Arctic program. Planning will also start on our community meeting scheduled for mid-June. Additionally, we are now turning some focused attention towards the OceanObs '19 Conference to insure it will deliver a compelling message on the value of ocean observing and an accompanying vision of ocean observing innovation, integration, and improved governance over the next decade.
TPOS-2020 remains a key priority (see note below - their second Report draft will be out for comment in the next several weeks) and we are centrally involved in discussions regarding proposed reforms within WMO that could alter the landscape of inter-governmental (e.g IOC/GOOS) involvement in ocean observing.
The proposed organizational change described in a previous newsletter is still awaiting final approval. We recently submitted additional documentation. We will remain OOMD until the approval is granted. We will advertise our name change once the change is approved.
My best wishes for a wonderful holiday season!
David Legler, Chief - Ocean Observing and Monitoring Division
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Upcoming Meetings & Important Dates
OceanPredict '19
May 6-10, 2019 in Halifax, Canada
*Abstracts Deadline EXTENDED to JANUARY 6!
Future Oceans2 - the 2nd IMBeR Open Science Conference
June 15-21, 2019 in
Brest, France
27th International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics General Assembly
July 8-18, 2019 at the Palais des Congrès in Montréal, Québec, Canada
More info
OceanObs '19
Sept 16-20, 2019 Honolulu, HI
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Program Updates
Happy Holidays from the Ocean Observing and Monitoring team at NOAA!
The holiday season is upon us! As we take some time to reflect on the year, we want to thank everyone for their hard work, and wish you success in the new year!
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Arctic Report Card Released with Strong Media Coverage
The Arctic Report Card was released December 11th at the AGU Fall Meeting and gained strong media coverage, generating more than 700 media stories reaching an estimated 655 million readers.
OOMD's Dr. Emily Osborne, lead editor of the Arctic Report Card, also led the press panel, which
included Dr. Donald Perovich,
Dr. Howard Epstein, and Dr. Karen Frey
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Key findings from the report include:
- The Arctic continues to warm at twice the rate as the rest of the globe.
- Only 1% of sea ice has now survived more than 4 years.
- Winter sea ice in the Bering Sea hit a record low in 2018, losing enough ice to cover the state of Idaho in two weeks at the peak of winter.
- Long-term warming trends may be contributing to a 56% drop in caribou and reindeer populations over the last 20 years.
Read the full
Arctic Report Card, which includes the first reports on harmful algal blooms and plastic pollution in the Arctic. Click the image above to watch the video with highlights from the report.
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The Argo Program Celebrates 2 Million Profiles!
On Monday, December 10th, Argo partners were joined by NOAA OAR's Craig McLean and RDML Tim Gallaudet to celebrate the remarkable achievement of recording two million profiles. The cake cutting ceremony was well attended at NOAA's booth at the AGU Fall Meeting in Washington, D.C. Argo Director, Breck Owens spoke about the history of the 20 year old ocean observing program and its journey in revolutionizing oceanography.
An article commemorating this achievement has been posted to the NOAA Research website, and shared on Facebook and Twitter with more than 85 impressions. Congratulations to all of our Argo partners on reaching this milestone, and we are excited for the future of the Argo Program.
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The Tropical Pacific Observing System 2020 Project (
TPOS 2020) held it's 5th Steering Committee meeting in Yokohama Japan in early November. At this meeting, TPOS 2020 partners presented their forward looking ideas related to the project and Steering Committee members discussed the content of the 2nd Report. The TPOS 2020 2nd Report is the second of three expected reports from TPOS 2020, which has the goal of redesigning the observing system to improve our understanding of ENSO and make it more resilient against system degradation. The 2nd Report will be open for expert and community review from early January to early February 2019, with an expected publication date of March 2019.
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T
he NSF Mid-scale Research Infrastructure-2 Program (Mid-scale RI-2) supports implementation of projects that comprise any combination of equipment, instrumentation, computational hardware and software, and the necessary commissioning and human capital in support of implementation of the same. The total cost for Mid-scale RI-2 projects ranges from $20 million to below the minimum award funded by the Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction (MREFC) Program, currently $70 million. Mid-scale RI-2 projects will directly enable advances in any of the research domains supported by NSF, including STEM education. Projects may also include upgrades to existing research infrastructure.
Letters of Intent are due February 8, 2019. Click for more details and deadlines.
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NOAA R&D Plan: Public Comment Period Open
The NOAA Research and Development Enterprise Committee (RDEC) is a cross-line office committee under the NOAA Research Council that is tasked with developing the next NOAA R&D Plan. There is currently a public comment period open until February 8, 2019 for submitting comments to inform the development of the plan. Both internal and external comments can be sent via email to [email protected], and internal groups can use the subject line "Internal Comment on NOAA R&D Plan."
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Upcoming Training Course on Biogeochemical Sensors
The International Ocean Carbon Coordination Project (IOCCP) and EU BONUS INTEGRAL Project (Integrated carboN and TracE Gas monitoRing for the bALtic sea) are organizing a 10-day international training course on "Instrumenting our ocean for better observation: a training course on a suite of biogeochemical sensors." The course will be held on June 10-21, 2019 at the Sven Lovén Center for Marine Sciences, in Kristineberg, Sweden. Application process will open in mid-December 2018. Save the dates and stay tuned for updates on the course.
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As always, for the OOMD community, by the OOMD community,
Jessica Mkitarian
[301-427-2472
]
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