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1. Designing, generating, and translating deep-ocean observations for and with international policy makers

   https://doi.org/10.1093/icesjms/fsac143  

   Levin, Lisa A. ; Cimoli, Laura ; Gjerde, Kristina ; Harden-Davies, Harriet ; Heimbach, Patrick ; LaScala-Gruenewald, Diana ; Pachiadaki, Maria ; Pillar, Helen R. ; Smith, Leslie M. ; Stocks, Karen ; et al ( August 2022 , ICES Journal of Marine Science)

   Deep-ocean observing is essential for informing policy making in the arenas of climate, biodiversity, fisheries, energy and minerals extraction, pollution, hazards, and genetic resources. The Deep Ocean Observing Strategy (DOOS), a UN Ocean Decade endorsed programme, is meeting with representatives from relevant international bodies and agreements to strengthen their interface with the deep-ocean science community, ensure that deep observing is responsive to societal needs, identify points of entry for science in policy making, and to develop relevant products for broad use. DOOS collaboration with the Environmental Systems Research Institute (Esri) facilitates this co-design. A DOOS policy liaison team is being formed to link the contacts, voices, and messaging of multiple deep-ocean networks and organizations in reaching international policy makers. The UN Ocean Decade will help to gain the ear of target communities, scale communication channels appropriately, minimize duplicative efforts, maximize limited resources, and organize inclusive and equitable public and private partners in deep-ocean science and policy.
2. Climate change considerations are fundamental to management of deep‐sea resource extraction

   https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.15223  

   Levin, Lisa A. ; Wei, Chih‐Lin ; Dunn, Daniel C. ; Amon, Diva J. ; Ashford, Oliver S. ; Cheung, William W. L. ; Colaço, Ana ; Dominguez‐Carrió, Carlos ; Escobar, Elva G. ; Harden‐Davies, Harriet R. ; et al ( July 2020 , Global Change Biology)

   Climate change manifestation in the ocean, through warming, oxygen loss, increasing acidification, and changing particulate organic carbon flux (one metric of altered food supply), is projected to affect most deep‐ocean ecosystems concomitantly with increasing direct human disturbance. Climate drivers will alter deep‐sea biodiversity and associated ecosystem services, and may interact with disturbance from resource extraction activities or even climate geoengineering. We suggest that to ensure the effective management of increasing use of the deep ocean (e.g., for bottom fishing, oil and gas extraction, and deep‐seabed mining), environmental management and developing regulations must consider climate change. Strategic planning, impact assessment and monitoring, spatial management, application of the precautionary approach, and full‐cost accounting of extraction activities should embrace climate consciousness. Coupled climate and biological modeling approaches applied in the water and on the seafloor can help accomplish this goal. For example, Earth‐System Model projections of climate‐change parameters at the seafloor reveal heterogeneity in projected climate hazard and time of emergence (beyond natural variability) in regions targeted for deep‐seabed mining. Models that combine climate‐induced changes in ocean circulation with particle tracking predict altered transport of early life stages (larvae) under climate change. Habitat suitability models can help assess the consequences of alteredmore »larval dispersal, predict climate refugia, and identify vulnerable regions for multiple species under climate change. Engaging the deep observing community can support the necessary data provisioning to mainstream climate into the development of environmental management plans. To illustrate this approach, we focus on deep‐seabed mining and the International Seabed Authority, whose mandates include regulation of all mineral‐related activities in international waters and protecting the marine environment from the harmful effects of mining. However, achieving deep‐ocean sustainability under the UN Sustainable Development Goals will require integration of climate consideration across all policy sectors.

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3. Building on a human-centred, iterative, and agile co-design strategy to facilitate the availability of deep ocean data

   https://doi.org/10.1093/icesjms/fsac145  

   LaScala-Gruenewald, Diana E. ; Low, Natalie H. N. ; Barry, James P. ; Brown, Jennifer A. ; King, Chad ; Chavez, Francisco P. ; Ruhl, Henry A. ; Demer, ed., David ( September 2022 , ICES Journal of Marine Science)

   Current information on the status and trends of ocean change is needed to support effective and responsive management, particularly for the deep ocean. Creating consistent, collaborative and actionable mechanisms is a key component of the Deep Ocean Observing Strategy, a program of the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development. Here, we share an iterative, agile, and human-centred approach to co-designing datastreams for deep-sea indicators that serves stakeholders, including US National Marine Sanctuaries, presented as a four-phase project roadmap initially focused on the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, and then generalized to other areas such as the US West Coast, offshore wind development areas, and managed marine spaces globally. Ongoing efforts to provide key physical, biogeochemical, biological, and ecosystem variables for California's Marine Protected Areas are informing this co-design process. We share lessons learned so far and present co-design as a useful tool for (1) assessing the availability of information from deep ecosystems, (2) ensuring interoperability, and (3) providing essential information on the status and trends of indicators. Documenting and sharing this co-design strategy and scalable four-phase roadmap will further the aims of DOOS and other initiatives, including the Deep Ocean Stewardship Initiative and Challenger 150.
4. A Global Ocean Oxygen Database and Atlas for Assessing and Predicting Deoxygenation and Ocean Health in the Open and Coastal Ocean

   https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2021.724913  

   Grégoire, Marilaure ; Garçon, Véronique ; Garcia, Hernan ; Breitburg, Denise ; Isensee, Kirsten ; Oschlies, Andreas ; Telszewski, Maciej ; Barth, Alexander ; Bittig, Henry C. ; Carstensen, Jacob ; et al ( December 2021 , Frontiers in Marine Science)

   In this paper, we outline the need for a coordinated international effort toward the building of an open-access Global Ocean Oxygen Database and ATlas (GO 2 DAT) complying with the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable). GO 2 DAT will combine data from the coastal and open ocean, as measured by the chemical Winkler titration method or by sensors (e.g., optodes, electrodes) from Eulerian and Lagrangian platforms (e.g., ships, moorings, profiling floats, gliders, ships of opportunities, marine mammals, cabled observatories). GO 2 DAT will further adopt a community-agreed, fully documented metadata format and a consistent quality control (QC) procedure and quality flagging (QF) system. GO 2 DAT will serve to support the development of advanced data analysis and biogeochemical models for improving our mapping, understanding and forecasting capabilities for ocean O 2 changes and deoxygenation trends. It will offer the opportunity to develop quality-controlled data synthesis products with unprecedented spatial (vertical and horizontal) and temporal (sub-seasonal to multi-decadal) resolution. These products will support model assessment, improvement and evaluation as well as the development of climate and ocean health indicators. They will further support the decision-making processes associated with the emerging blue economy, the conservation of marine resources and theirmore »associated ecosystem services and the development of management tools required by a diverse community of users (e.g., environmental agencies, aquaculture, and fishing sectors). A better knowledge base of the spatial and temporal variations of marine O 2 will improve our understanding of the ocean O 2 budget, and allow better quantification of the Earth’s carbon and heat budgets. With the ever-increasing need to protect and sustainably manage ocean services, GO 2 DAT will allow scientists to fully harness the increasing volumes of O 2 data already delivered by the expanding global ocean observing system and enable smooth incorporation of much higher quantities of data from autonomous platforms in the open ocean and coastal areas into comprehensive data products in the years to come. This paper aims at engaging the community (e.g., scientists, data managers, policy makers, service users) toward the development of GO 2 DAT within the framework of the UN Global Ocean Oxygen Decade (GOOD) program recently endorsed by IOC-UNESCO. A roadmap toward GO 2 DAT is proposed highlighting the efforts needed (e.g., in terms of human resources).« less
5. Beyond ecosystem modeling: A roadmap to community cyberinfrastructure for ecological data‐model integration

   https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.15409  

   Fer, Istem ; Gardella, Anthony K. ; Shiklomanov, Alexey N. ; Campbell, Eleanor E. ; Cowdery, Elizabeth M. ; De Kauwe, Martin G. ; Desai, Ankur ; Duveneck, Matthew J. ; Fisher, Joshua B. ; Haynes, Katherine D. ; et al ( November 2020 , Global Change Biology)

   In an era of rapid global change, our ability to understand and predict Earth's natural systems is lagging behind our ability to monitor and measure changes in the biosphere. Bottlenecks to informing models with observations have reduced our capacity to fully exploit the growing volume and variety of available data. Here, we take a critical look at the information infrastructure that connects ecosystem modeling and measurement efforts, and propose a roadmap to community cyberinfrastructure development that can reduce the divisions between empirical research and modeling and accelerate the pace of discovery. A new era of data‐model integration requires investment in accessible, scalable, and transparent tools that integrate the expertise of the whole community, including both modelers and empiricists. This roadmap focuses on five key opportunities for community tools: the underlying foundations of community cyberinfrastructure; data ingest; calibration of models to data; model‐data benchmarking; and data assimilation and ecological forecasting. This community‐driven approach is a key to meeting the pressing needs of science and society in the 21st century.