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Greetings!
The calendar says that Fall is here, but we haven’t necessarily been feeling it in Texas, where temperatures have remained high. Other Gulf states enjoyed a bit of a “cold” front this week, which we hope will bode well for Gulf temperatures to start cooling — and keep cooling off for the rest of hurricane season. Fingers crossed!
The arrival of Fall also means that it’s time for our Fall Members’ Meeting. Because some of our federal partners may not be able to join us due to the federal shutdown, we’ve decided to switch to a virtual meeting format this year. That means we’re also postponing our 20th anniversary celebration until our next in-person meeting, which we are scheduling for Spring of 2026. While we’re disappointed not to be seeing everyone in person next month, we still expect robust stakeholder discussions.
Please watch your inbox for an email with the updated agenda early next week. In the meantime, please be sure to register for the virtual meeting here.
And I also wanted to remind you that 5 p.m. CT today is the deadline for Letters of Intent (LOI) for the next GCOOS five-year proposal to IOOS for the funding period July 2026-June 2031. You can review the submission details and a webinar Q&A here.
We understand there may be limitations in contacting or coordinating with federal collaborators at this time. If you plan to include federal partners in your proposal but are currently unable to engage with them, please provide a brief description of their intended role and outline how you anticipate collaborating with them in the development of your full proposal, should your Letter of Intent (LOI) be accepted. We anticipate sending acceptance notifications out starting Nov. 1, with full proposals due from PIs on Nov. 30.
Finally, I wanted to welcome our newest GCOOS-ian, GIS Administrator Pallavi Tummeti. She will continue helping us expand our Enterprise GIS infrastructure and we are pleased to have her working with us!
Until next month,
| | GCOOS Fall Members’ Meeting Goes Virtual! | |
GCOOS is pivoting our Fall Members’ Meeting to a virtual meeting to be held on Thursday, Nov. 13. We are currently adjusting the meeting time and agenda to account for the federal partners who may not be able to join us, and we will send an email with an updated agenda early next week. In the meantime, please register today so we can send you the link to the virtual meeting!
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GCOOS Welcomes New GIS Administrator | | |
Please join us in welcoming Pallavi Tummeti to GCOOS as our new GIS Administrator and Developer. She joins our Data Management and Cyberinfrastructure Team and her focus will include support for the CETACEAN Data Portal, including performing GIS-based spatial analysis to support research on marine mammals and their environmental stressors in the Gulf of Mexico.
Pallavi holds a Master’s degree in Information Systems from Saint Louis University, and a Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from India. Her educational background and professional interests bridge geospatial technologies, environmental data, and system development. As part of her role, she will expand our Enterprise GIS infrastructure collaborate closely with the CETACEAN and other existing projects and support development of new data visualization platforms for GCOOS.
Welcome aboard, Pallavi!
| | Letters of Intent for 2026-2031 GCOOS Proposal to IOOS Due TODAY! | |
The deadline for letters of intent (LOI) for the next GCOOS five-year proposal to IOOS for the funding period July 2026-June 2031 are due to GCOOS before 5 p.m. CT TODAY.
We invite project ideas from GCOOS members and stakeholders across the Gulf region — spanning public, private, academic, and nonprofit sectors — for inclusion in a single, coordinated proposal.
Our goal is to advance the implementation of the GCOOS Strategic Plan 2020-2025 and Addendum to the Build-out Plan, strengthening a robust and resilient ocean observing network throughout the Gulf of America.
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For full details, deadlines, submission information and review criteria, please click here
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Click here to download the webinar presentation materials
| | USF Students Set Sail to Study Ocean Carbon Chemistry in the Gulf | | Dr. Robert Byrne with the members of the CO2 Chemistry Lab at the University of South Florida, from eft to right: Juan Millán Otoya, Dr. Robert Byrne, Macarena Martín Mayor, Naja Murphy, Kalla Fleger and Dr. Xuewu Liu. | |
Starting next week, doctoral students from the University of South Florida will join the Gulf of America/Mexico Ecosystems and Carbon Cruise (GOMECC), a recurring research expedition organized by NOAA’s Ocean Acidification Program that brings together scientists from across the U.S. to collect data on ocean carbon chemistry, track long-term changes, and assess how coastal and offshore ecosystems are responding to ocean acidification.
The USF students joining the cruise — Macarena Martín Mayor, pH technician, Juan Millán Otoya, who will measure calcium concentrations in seawater and Naja Murphy, who will focus on organic alkalinity measurements — come from USF’s CO₂ Chemistry Lab led by Dr. Robert Byrne, Distinguished University Professor. The USF lab has become a cornerstone for carbon system measurements in Gulf expeditions and many of the high-precision tools used during the expeditions were developed by Byrne at USF.
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Learn more about GOMECC and follow cruise updates here
Cruises like GOMECC-5 embody GCAN’s mission to synthesize knowledge, guide research priorities, coordinate collaborative efforts and communicate insights on coastal and ocean acidification to advance understanding, inform management, and support resilient marine ecosystems and communities. GCAN will be following their journey and sharing updates from GOMECC-5. Here is our first video — a conversation with pH technician and Ph.D. candidate Macarena Martín Mayor.
Stay tuned for more exclusive video interviews from the team’s shipboard setup and lab preparations!
| | Making Data Accessibility Faster and More User Friendly | | |
A new paper in the journal Software X by lead author Zhenlei Song with co-authors GCOOS Executive Director Jorge Brenner and Zhe Zhang, Alan Sussman, Yuhang Xie and Jikun Liu argues that NetCDFaster bridges the gap between performance and usability for extracting and visualizing large datasets.
In “NetCDFaster: Optimizing NetCDF data querying and geo-visualization using high-performance machine learning” the authors explain that existing tools typically trade-off between performance and usability, either optimizing data retrieval at the cost of user experience or providing user-friendly interfaces that struggle with performance issues. By integrating a lightweight CatBoost classifier model into a web-based platform that automatically selects optimal data retrieval strategies, NetCDFaster reduces end-to-end retrieval times by more than 80%, allowing researchers to efficiently explore data subsets and visualize results, significantly enhancing the speed and effectiveness of scientific workflows involving NetCDF data.
| | New Spotter Buoy in the Sanctuary | |
In September, GCOOS and SECOORA shared the cost for the installation of a new Sofar spotter buoy with the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary. The buoy — nicknamed “Kevin” — was deployed in the Sanctuary’s West Bank. Its sensors are collecting data on wave height, wind speed, temperatures from the surface and reef cap depth, as well as dissolved oxygen data from the midwater column and at reef cap depth. This buoy provides important real-time information for FGBNMS staff and visitors to assess offshore conditions and the data can also be tracked historically to see changes over time.
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You can see data from “Kevin” — along with data from other Gulf buoys — on the GCOOS data portal here
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Did you know that there’s a feature in the FGBNMS near the new Sofar buoy named in honor of Dr. Matthew Howard, Texas A&M oceanographer and a founding member of GCOOS? Matt developed a unique expertise in oceanography and ocean data management systems, information architecture and marine spatial data infrastructure. Today GCOOS hosts the Matt Howard Fellowship, which offers undergraduate or graduate students the opportunity to attend a professional conference and to learn from GCOOS staff and partners about career options related to ocean science and data management. Click here to learn more about Matt, the Fellowship (and application deadlines) and make a donation in support.
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| So Far, So Good, but Why? | | |
The slowdown of this year’s hurricane season — which was predicted to be above average — has had the meteorological community — and likely a lot of Gulf Coast residents — buzzing. So the Colorado State University’s Tropical Cyclones, Radar, Atmospheric Modeling, and Software Team has released a new white paper describing some of the weather phenomena that have likely been responsible for the recent quiet period and provide a qualitative discussion about the potential for hurricane activity for the rest of the season. While the season had the long-lived major hurricane, Erin, it has quieted down likely due to several factors, the team says, including:
- A dry and stable tropical Atlantic
- A pronounced upper-tropospheric trough in the western Atlantic increasing vertical wind shear
- Sinking motion over Africa suppressing West African precipitation and likely African easterly wave intensity.
Read the “Discussion of 2025 Atlantic hurricane season to date and Forecast thoughts on the rest of the season” here.
| | Team Works to Improve Storm Forecasting | | Dr. David Richter uses the Black Swift drone, deployed from NOAA aircraft, to capture data from inside the storm near the ocean's surface. | | |
New technology and understanding are making hurricane forecasting more accurate, but knowing how strong a storm will be at landfall remains a challenge. A team led by Dr. David Richter, the Frank M. Freimann Collegiate Professor of Environmental Fluid Dynamics in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences at Notre Dame is hoping to change that by focusing on using computation techniques to understand the physics of turbulence in the environment, like that caused by marine fog, sea spray, or, in this case, hurricanes, with the hope of improving modeling and predicting techniques.
The team includes researchers from Colorado State, Colorado School of Mines, Texas A&M, University of Washington, University of Miami, Mississippi State University, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the US Naval Research Laboratory, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
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During hurricane season, we add a special hurricane section to our enewsletter. If you’ve got a hurricane data highlight or other hurricane-related news you’d like to share between now and November, please email our communications lead, Nadine Slimak, at Nadine@VettedCommunications.com. | | New Tidal Gauges in Florida’s Pinellas County | |
According to Spectrum News/Bay News 9, Pinellas County environmental management has installed 11 new tidal gauge sensors — encircling the county from Weedon Island to Fort DeSoto to Boca Ciega and Tarpon Springs — to provide real-time data for flood-prone areas during king tides and storm surge.
Rob Burnes, environmental management project manager told Spectrum News that county officials realized after 2024’s back-to-back hurricanes that it was missing data in some areas by relying only on the two tidal gauge sensors in west Pinellas and Clearwater Beach. The county will use the water level gauges to better understand and communicate the threat of flooding in real-time.
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Healthy Ecosystems & Living Resources
| | On the Road to “Predicting” Biodiversity | |
The U.S. hosts one of the largest ocean territories in the world worth more than $511 billion in GDP (2023), including more than 2.6 million jobs in the blue economy linked to living marine resources such as coral reefs, fish, shrimp, lobster and crabs. Until development of the Marine Biodiversity Observation Network (MBON), efforts to understand where different species are, how they interact with each other and the environment, and how populations are doing to wisely manage and conserve them have been scattered and poorly coordinated.
Today, MBON is working to use technological advances to develop standardized approaches for measuring biological data. Collaborations spanning federal, state, academic, tribal and commercial sectors enabled via the biodiversity observing network has led to a growing arsenal of measurement techniques that include genomics, passive and active acoustics for animal tracking, microscopy imaging, satellite sensors and artificial intelligence.
While not quite perfected yet, the MBON team’s work — including its partnership with Marine Life 2030 — is advancing national-scale data collection and database coordination and developing the infrastructure critical to growing multiple sectors of the blue economy in the Gulf, including fisheries, aquaculture, energy production, ocean-based tourism, pharmaceuticals, and sand harvesting for beach nourishment. The Marine Life 2030 vision is that by 2030 and beyond, anyone, anywhere, will have access to information on marine species and ecosystems important to local fisheries, culture, health, and livelihoods and a better understanding of how species are shifting so that there is a sustainable future for nature and people.
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GCOOS is pleased to share a new ArcGIS StoryMap “Ocean Highways: Charting the Course of Global Trade” developed by high school intern Iven Keomanyvong, who spent the summer working at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab under the mentorship of Dr. Tina Miller-Way, Chair of Discovery Hall Programs for Education and Outreach and long-time member of the GCOOS Outreach and Education Council.
The internship was made possible with Inflation Reduction Act funding to GCOOS to help develop the next generation of technologists to support ocean observing. Dr. Chris Simoniello, GCOOS Outreach and Education Manager, and Megan Howson, GCOOS Marine Mammal Data Scientist, also provided guidance as Keomanyvong developed the StoryMap.
The Ocean Highways journey starts by considering how goods are moved across the globe, demonstrating how the Automatic Information System (AIS) keeps thousands of cargo vessels moving safely into and out of ports. It includes an interview with Mobile Bay Bar Pilot Patrick Wilson and descriptions of careers related to the maritime transportation industry.
“It was a pleasure to work with Iven,” Dr. Miller-Way said. “Early in the project, we chatted about skills he thought might be beneficial for his future as well as our need for more information for high school students about 'marine science adjacent' careers. From these conversations, he examined the wealth of data available through GCOOS and selected the ship traffic tracking system for a project. He worked hard learning about shipping, port operations, GIS software, handling humongous datasets, and more; asking questions when needed, and teaching me more about the AIS system than I knew. He has crafted an engaging and informative story map about a relatively unknown topic and we are excited to share with our audiences.”
Tim Osborn, NOAA's Regional Navigation Manager for the Central Gulf Coast agreed. “Iven developed a thoroughly impressive StoryMap that provides a fantastic overview of the crucial roles large port complexes play in south Alabama and the Gulf Coast, acting as vital connections to world markets. His work clearly highlights the importance of container shipping and showcases the technology involved in tracking shipping and cargo. This project serves as an excellent example of how students can gain insight and involvement in such a significant and expanding sector of our U.S. economy.”
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Check out out “Ocean Highways: Charting the Course of Global Trade” here
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Gulf of America Alliance
Call for Abstracts Now Open for GulfCon 2026
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Don’t miss an opportunity to participate in important conversations on resilience, restoration, and natural resource management focused on the Gulf during the next GulfCon 2026! The call for abstracts for this four-day conference in Mobile, Alabama, is now open.
Emphasizing the intersection of science, policy and management, GulfCon includes 32 sessions on themes that are important to ecosystem and community resilience as well as restoration and natural resource management. To support that goal, the Program Committee invites abstracts for presentations across a variety of topics and geographies from within the Gulf region. Abstracts should include background, objectives, findings, and whether and how the findings will be applied. Abstracts not selected for oral presentations will be given the opportunity to participate in a poster session.
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University of Texas at Austin Marine Science Institute (UTMSI)
New Director Named
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UTMSI has announced the appointment of GCOOS Principal Investigator Dr. Sharon Herzka as its new Director. Herzka brings more than two decades of research and administrative experience to the role. Before rejoining UT, she was a Research Professor at the Center for Scientific Research and Higher Education of Ensenada (CICESE) in Baja California, Mexico — the largest of Mexico’s 27 national centers of excellence affiliated with the Secretariat of Science, Humanities, Technology and Innovation (SECIHTI). There, she served as the Department Head of Biological Oceanography and held other administrative positions.
As a marine ecologist, Herzka’s research centers on fish and fisheries ecology, isotope ecology, and Gulf oceanography. Following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster, she began investigating the deepwater region of the central Gulf to evaluate potential spill impacts within Mexico’s Exclusive Economic Zone. Building on this work, she co-led a national consortium (CIGOM) that developed critical data and strategies to assess and mitigate the impacts of a future oil spill in Mexico’s offshore region. Herzka’s career has been distinguished by collaborative, large-scale projects that address pressing environmental challenges.
In a parallel appointment, Dr. Ken Dunton has been named chair of the Department of Marine Science, ensuring strong, coordinated leadership across the institute and academic departments.
In addition to her research and teaching, Herzka has contributed extensively to professional service at the international level. She is the president-elect of the Coastal and Estuarine Research Federation (CERF), an organization that promotes the understanding and stewardship of estuarine and coastal ecosystems worldwide. Her two-year UTMSI presidency will start in November.
As a GCOOS PI, Herzka leads the project: “Validation and monitoring of holoplanktonic Sargassum along the Texas Coastal Bend” — the first GCOOS project that collects sargassum observations in the Gulf region.
Congratulations Dr. Herzka!
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Cooperative Institute for Research to Operations in Hydrology (CIROH) The University of Alabama
Deadline Extended Through EOD Today
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CIROH has extended the deadline for the FY26 White Paper Call through 5 p.m. CT today, Friday, Oct. 17, 2025. PIs at CIROH member or partner institutions (co-PIs may be external) are welcome to submit a research idea in response to the potential funding available in this year’s appropriation.
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Please click here to access the White Paper Intake Form, which includes all templates, guidelines, and submission instructions.
| Visiting Scholar Applications Open Through Oct. 31 | |
Faculty, researchers and professionals are invited to apply for the CIROH Visiting Scholar Program, which supports short-term collaborative visits to CIROH at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. Collaborate with CIROH teams, share expertise, and advance research in hydrologic modeling, prediction, and decision support.
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Hello.gov - Sr. Cloud and Data Engineer
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University of Miami: Assistant Professor in Physical Oceanography
- Mote Marine Laboratory
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University of Louisiana at Lafayette – Research Associate; Water Quality Monitoring
Postdoctoral Positions:
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Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute: Postdoctoral Fellowship
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National Research Council: Research Associateship Programs Postdoctoral and Senior Research Awards
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Mississippi State University: Postdoctoral Associate
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Downeast Institute: Research Scientist
Fellowships:
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Ph.D. Position: Florida State University (Deadline has been extended)
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National Academies of Science, Engineering and Mathematics: Early Career Fellowships
- Department of Defense: Visualization of Coastal Data, Coastal Vulnerability Assessment Fellow
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National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, Gulf Research Program: Environmental Literacy for Community Resilience
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National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, Gulf Research Program: Empowering K-8 Through Place Based Education
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Gulf of Mexico Alliance: Increasing Participation in Clean and Resiient Marine Programs
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Seagrant: Addressing Priority Research, Extenision and Education Needs
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The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine: Early Career Research Fellowship
| | 15-19: AGU25, New Orleans, Louisiana | | 18-20: UG2 Underwater Glider User Group, St. Petersburg, Florida, Details coming soon. | | Dr. Jorge Brenner, Executive Director • Marcus Ogle, Associate Director • Dr. Uchenna Nwankwo, Oceanographer • Dr. Chris Simoniello, Outreach & Education Manager • Dr. Natalia López Figueroa, GCAN Coordinator and GCOOS 2025-26 Gulf Science Policy Fellow with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine • Felimon Gayanilo, Systems Architect, Co-Data Manager • Bob Currier, Product Developer, Co-Data Manager • Pallavi Tummeti, GIS Adminstrator and Developer • Tuomo Saari, Scientific Computing Specialist • Xiao Qi, Scientific Computing Specialist • Megan Howson, Marine Mammal Biologist and Data Scientist • Sandeep Jilla, Software Developer • Grant Craig, Project Manager and HABscope Volunteer Coordinator • Nadine Slimak, Public Relations & Content Marketing, Vetted Communications, LLC • Laura Caldwell, Program Assistant | | | | |
