Greetings,

While I never had the pleasure of working with Ann directly, today we’re continuing to build on her legacy. You can learn more about Ann’s legacy here and share a remembrance here. The family plans a celebration of her life next year.

This year, we reached milestones for the number of gliders launched and tracked on our dashboard GANDALF during hurricane season, and saw a record number of volunteers using our HABscope to track red tide for the Red Tide Respiratory Forecast. We’ve also continued to expand the number of standardized datasets that we’re sharing with our stakeholders through GCOOS and NOAA portals.

During the series, which will begin in early February, we’ll be inviting members of Mexico’s ocean observing community to share information about what’s happening in the southern Gulf. It’s one thing we’re doing to foster increased collaboration in the ocean observing community throughout the entire Gulf of Mexico; another is an international ocean acidification workshop that the Harte Research Institute and GCOOS's Gulf of Mexico Coastal Acidification Network (GCAN) are planning with colleagues from Cuba and Mexico. The details and timeline for the workshop and the webinar series focused on the southern Gulf are still being finalized but I’m excited that we’ll be continuing GCOOS’s efforts to build an international ocean observing community focused on our shared waters.

Until next month,

Did you know that GCOOS has more than 150 member organizations representing private, academic, and governmental and nongovernmental organizations and institutions with activities and interests in the Gulf of Mexico?

GCOOS Members have the unique opportunity to help guide the activities of the Gulf’s only certified, comprehensive data collection and dissemination organization working in near-real time to support coastal and ocean observations in the Gulf. Members can participate in GCOOS task teams and councils and vote in annual elections.

NOAA recently released the latest U.S. Ocean Enterprise report, which shows significant growth in businesses that provide the technological means to observe and measure ocean dynamics. Called the “Ocean Enterprise,” this cluster of businesses provides essential support to the $2 trillion global Blue Economy and has revenues of $8 billion. The sector saw a 60% growth of businesses between 2015 and 2020. These businesses deliver essential information services to support sustainable use of ocean resources, understand Earth’s climate, and protect ocean health. Building on the foundational study conducted by NOAA in 2015, this latest report analyzes trends in the Ocean Enterprise as it responds to the growing and changing information needs of the Blue Economy.

NOAA has launched the Mobile Bay Marine Channels Forecast (MCF) system, a new decision support tool that centralizes critical oceanographic and meteorological forecasts into one place. The effort represents the culmination of a year-long collaboration between CO-OPS and the National Weather Service’s (NWS) Weather Forecast Offices in Mobile Bay/Pensacola and Tampa Bay.

MCF is the second of its kind, and expands the flagship 2017 Tampa Bay MCF into a new region in the Gulf of Mexico. Mobile Bay’s MCF provides local mariners with a completely integrated view of forecasts along the area’s shipping channels. Vessel operators transiting Mobile Bay can now view all NOS water level and tidal current forecasts right alongside NWS 24-hour weather forecasts for winds, wind gusts, rain chance, and marine hazard alerts. Forecasts are available at 19 points along the area’s shipping channels all the way to the Port of Mobile. This information can be accessed in conjunction with real-time observations generated by the Mobile Bay Physical Oceanographic Real-Time System (PORTS®) and NWS.

The webinar & presentation slides are available online via the IOOS Association’s National HAB Observing webpage where you can also find additional information about the network or click below to watch it now.

Sea Grant is seeking public input through a new survey designed to gain a better understanding of the national landscape of “Contaminants of Emerging Concern,” — a diversity of compounds/families of compounds that have received notice in the popular press, as well as chemicals that have lesser visibility.

Such contaminants are not well regulated and their impacts on human health and ecosystems are not well understood. There is also no clear single agency jurisdiction to address emerging contaminants, and significant overlap exists in interests and responsibilities across state and federal agencies and programs.

The purpose of the survey is to gain a better understanding of the national landscape on Contaminants of Emerging Concern, and identify a strategic national role/framework for Sea Grant on this broad and novel topic.

The Water Institute of the Gulf has completed a series of projects funded by cooperative agreement with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service: “Advancing the goals of SECAS: A program to improve Southeast Conservation Blueprint utility in the Gulf of Mexico.” The broader goal of this effort is to increase the utility and application of the Southeast Conservation Blueprint in the Gulf by collecting, improving, and coordinating existing datasets. This work meets a need in the northern Gulf of Mexico for actionable, science-based tools due to both natural and human-induced threats to key habitats and ongoing large investments in land management, conservation, and restoration.

Scientists at NOAA’s Southeast Fisheries Science Center have partnered with the University of Miami to build a coral cultivation and research facility at the University’s Experimental Hatchery on Key Biscayne. The goal is to improve the ability to restore corals on Florida reefs by gaining a better understanding of the factors that contribute to more resilient corals.

In six months, the team has reared thousands of recruits from seven coral species, including several — elkhorn, staghorn, and mountainous star coral — listed on the Endangered Species Act.

Researchers have also shared coral larvae with additional partners working on coral research and restoration, including:

So begins the introduction to a recently published special issue of the journal Oceanography “MBON—Marine Biodiversity Observation Network: An Observing System for Life in the Sea,” a collection of papers focused on MBON that highlight the groundwork of the Network, from the development of monitoring methods and best practices to the importance of partnerships to advancing data and knowledge systems. The authors discuss developing a network to catalyze ocean biological data and develop a system to make the data as accessible and useful to a wide range of audiences as weather reports.

GCOOS is working with MBON partner institutions to advance the technology for assessing biodiversity by acting as a data management partner to the South Florida Marine Biodiversity Observation Network and supporting outreach and education related to the projects.

The Marine Biological Data Mobilization Workshop is going virtual and its dates have changed.

The workshop is intended to be a hands-on, virtual workshop focused on mobilizing marine biological observation datasets to the Ocean Biodiversity Information System (OBIS) by helping data providers standardize their data using Darwin Core including species observations from any type of sampling methodologies. It is hosted by CIOOS, IOOS, MBON, OBIS-USA, and OTN and provides a Contribution to the UN Decade on Ocean Science for Sustainable Development and the Marine Life 2030 Decade Action.

The Chicago Zoological Society’s Sarasota Dolphin Research Program, created in 1970 and based in Florida’s Sarasota Bay, has documented 22 dolphin births in 2021 to the long-term resident bottlenose dolphin community of Sarasota Bay, Florida, exceeding the record of 21 set in 2017. The Bay’s dolphins are the focus of the world’s longest-running study of a wild dolphin population.

“It’s exciting to document new calves each year as one measure of the health of the Bay’s dolphin population and the health of the Bay itself,” said the Program’s Director, Dr. Randy Wells. “But the long-term nature of our research allows us to drill deeper and consider the question of why we had a record number of births. It appears that the red tide that reached Sarasota Bay in 2018 may have played a role.”

A recent study by Dr. Kerry Emanual from MIT’s Lorenz Center in the journal Nature Communications looked at historical hurricane records to determine whether storms are increasing in frequency.

The results support earlier statistically-based inferences that storms were undercounted in the 19th century, but in contrast to earlier work, show increasing tropical cyclone activity through the period (interrupted by a prominent hurricane drought in the 1970s and 80s attributed to anthropogenic aerosols).

The Sea Grant oil spill science outreach team has published an update on the impacts of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on fisheries in the Gulf of Mexico.

The update discusses the impacts to individual fish, as well as to fish populations and communities of interdependent organisms. The Sea Grant oil spill science outreach team identifies the best available science from projects funded by the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) and others, and shares peer-reviewed research results.

The 2010 Deepwater Horizon flushed 3.2 million barrels of oil into the deep ocean over nearly three months. The oil plume moved throughout the water column and formed surface slicks that cumulatively covered an area the size of Virginia, and washed onshore to at least 1,300 miles of habitats.

The trustees and NOAA are required to periodically review the progress of the ecological restoration program created following the spill. This first review shows that by the end of 2020, Trustees received $2.8 billion of the $8.8 billion settlement and committed $2.4 billion (87%) of the received funds to restoration projects and planning initiatives.

The National Sea Grant Office is accepting nominations for its Advisory Board. Submit the name of the nominee, a CV, resume or detailed bio, and area of expertise. The Advisory Board is also looking for regional expertise in the Great Lakes and U.S. Caribbean. While nominations are always accepted, to be considered for current openings, please submit your nomination no later than Jan. 31, 2022.

GCOOS maintains a listing of funding opportunities. Have an opportunity you'd like to advertise? Email Laura Caldwell

23-27: American Meteorological Society, 102nd Annual Meeting, Houston, Texas

F27-M4: ASLO/TOS Ocean Sciences Meeting, Honolulu, Hawaii

12-14: MTS TechSurge: Florida Estuary and Coastal Monitoring

25-28: Gulf of Mexico Conference. Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Details

26-28: 2022 DMAC Sprint, Chicago, Illinois

9-13: GlobalHAB Workshop: Modeling and Prediction of Harmful Algal Blooms, Glasgow, UK

Dr. Jorge Brenner, Executive Director • Dr. Barbara Kirkpatrick, Senior Advisor • Bill Lingsch, U.S. Glider User Group Coordinator • Dr. Kerri Whilden, Oceanographer • Dr. Chris Simoniello, Outreach & Education Coordinator • Dr. Chuan-Yuan Hsu, Associate Research Scientist • Felimon Gayanilo, Systems Architect, Co-Data Manager • Bob Currier, Research Specialist, Product Developer, Co-Data Manager • Marion Stoessel, Senior Research Associate • Jennifer Vreeland-Dawson, Research Associate • Grant Craig, Program Coordinator • Laura Caldwell, Program Assistant • Nadine Slimak, Public Relations & Content Marketing, Vetted Communications, LLC

In Memoriam: Matt Howard, 1952-2018