1837 IMOS Marine Matters Issue 30 June 2018
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IMOS marinemattersISSUE 30 | JUNE 2018 Oceanographic drivers of New grant to support bleaching in the Great Barrier NSW-IMOS by facilitating Reef: from observations cross-disciplinary to prediction. integration of IMOS data. IMOS deployed four ocean gliders The IMOS Autonomous concurrently in the same region for the first time, alongside our Underwater Vehicle returns deep water mooring array. to South Australia. After 10 years the AUV Sirius has returned to SA to expand the IMOS integrated benthic monitoring program in the region. G. Grammer, SARDI Aquatic Sciences For more IMOS News | imos.org.au/news director’s corner Welcome to the latest edition term that will be very welcome for We are extremely grateful for the of Marine Matters. our operating institutions and their tremendous support provided by staff, and for our various partners and Australian Government through NCRIS. Headline news is the 2018 Budget co-investors. They have all stood by Our thanks go to the Minister for announcement that the Government IMOS during uncertain times, and we Education and Training and Minister will provide an additional $1.9 billion look forward to repaying that faith. for Jobs and Innovation who jointly over 12 years from 2017–18 ($393.3 launched the Government’s response. Secondly, IMOS will be boosted by $22M million over five years) to implement Our colleagues in the Department of new investment from the Australian the Research Infrastructure Investment of Education and Training, and the Government. This will allow us to Plan, informed by the 2016 National Department of Industry Innovation address deferred capital replacement Research Infrastructure Roadmap. and Science, have worked tirelessly to issues and undertake future capital support us. Australia’s Chief Scientist This is a profoundly important decision refreshment in a planned and managed Dr Alan Finkel AO showed great for IMOS as a national collaborative way. It will also allow new activities to leadership through development of research infrastructure. It means that, be commenced. This is very exciting, as the 2016 Roadmap and beyond. subject to ongoing strong performance the capacity to take up new scientific and future national priorities, IMOS and technological opportunities has The IMOS community has been will be sustained over the long term. been extremely limited in recent given a wonderful opportunity to Implementation of the Research years due to the funding situation. continue supporting great marine science, research and education in Infrastructure Investment Plan The IMOS Office and Governing Board the national interest. I’m sure I speak has two components. are well prepared to respond. The Five on behalf of all in saying that we Year Plan (2017–22) approved by the Firstly, IMOS operational funding intend to grasp it with both hands. already approved for 2018–19 Board in September 2016 will guide ($16.46M) will be extended for us through next steps, augmented I hope you enjoy reading the another four years (to 2022-23) with by additional consultation with the edition of Marine Matters. science community and the user and indexation. This provides much Tim Moltmann anticipated certainty over the medium stakeholder base over coming months. Lea Walpole Lea 2 marinematters NEWS Of key interest to the Bluelink partners IMOS data used to assess Bluelink’s are upper ocean dynamics and our ability to predict their evolution in time. regional and coastal modelling Such dynamics include (but are not limited to) the surface mixed layer WRITTEN BY: MARIAN WILTSHIRE, EMLYN JONES (CSIRO) (mixed layer depth and temperature AND GARY BRASSINGTON (BOM) gradients), surface currents and the position of fronts and eddies. Bluelink is a partnership between ingested into the prediction system More recently, Bluelink started to use data Defence, CSIRO and the Bureau via a process called data assimilation, collected from the IMOS Ocean Radar of Meteorology (BoM). The dual to create accurate, near-real time sites (Newcastle, Coffs and Perth), whilst estimates of circulation. More specifically, purpose goal of the Bluelink this assessment is still in a preliminary OceanMAPS assimilates multiple satellite phase, the data will be used to assess partnership is to maintain global, platforms for sea surface temperature the modelled current velocities. regional, and littoral ocean forecast and altimetry as well as in situ platform The IMOS Ocean Glider data is systems to support Defence (e.g., Argo, XBT, CTD). OceanMAPS is extremely important for Bluelink because applications; and to maintain a a Category 1 system operated by BoM, there are very few other observations national ocean forecasting capability forming the backbone of the national available to assess the 3D structure to help manage Australia’s diverse ocean forecasting system producing and temporal frequency of models area of maritime operations. daily forecasts out to seven days. in shelf areas. The vertical resolution Ocean conditions can be unpredictable. Both OceanMAPS and ROAM-Ocean provided by the Ocean Glider data This unpredictability creates risk and are routinely assessed against withheld is especially useful in this respect. uncertainty for industries and sectors in-situ observations (e.g. gliders, moorings Whilst the IMOS Ocean Glider data is that rely on the ocean, especially our and radars). OceanMAPS forecasts proving important, it is somewhat difficult maritime and naval industries. are assessed against unassimilated to use as it contains a lot of sub-meso- reference observations from the global Bluelink addresses this challenge by using scale features which are notoriously ocean observing system [e.g., Argo, a variety of observational data streams challenging to predict in a model. A model drifting buoys (SST and currents) and from numerous sources to create a can often generate these sub-mesoscale Jason-altimetry] and compared with comprehensive suite of ocean forecasts features, but they may not be in the right other international systems from the UK, that predict all types of marine weather place at the right time. The prediction France, Canada and the USA. The results scenarios, from local beach conditions to of sub-meso scale features is an area are accessible via an internet service oceanic interactions on a global scale. of active research, and as observing (http://130.56.244.252/monitoring/ systems generate larger quantities of Over the past two years Bluelink’s regional index.php?pg=class4_stats) in near high resolution data, and modelling forecasting system (ROAM-Ocean), has real-time and summary charts are systems increase in resolution, such been applied to more than 100 domains published annually. Each of the ROAM- features may become skillfully forecast. in the Australian region and performed Ocean simulations is automatically over 3,900 individual model simulations. assessed against IMOS observations The Bluelink models and forecasts ROAM-Ocean is nested within the Ocean (including data from Satellite Sea are shared with Defence, marine Model, Analysis and Prediction System Surface Temperature, Argo floats and planners, and maritime industry and (OceanMAPS) an operational global Ocean Gliders) using software (EnKF-C, safety authorities, to help guide their ocean model and assimilation system. https://github.com/sakov/enkf-c) activities at sea and near shore. developed by Pavel Sakov (BoM). OceanMAPS is the global ocean With a better understanding of Australia’s forecasting component of Bluelink and A majority of the ROAM-Ocean oceans and beaches, innovative is forced with atmospheric fields from assessments take place along the shelf approaches can be created to understand the Australian Community Climate and off southern Western Australia and the marine environment and support Earth-System Simulator (ACCESS). northern New South Wales, using the its sustainability, as well as boosting To ensure accurate predictions of the repeat transects from the IMOS Ocean the efficiency and profitability of ocean- physical state of the ocean, observations Gliders (both the deep water Sea Gliders based industries and services. n taken from the sea (in-situ) and the and and the more coastal Slocum Gliders). space (via satellite) are processed and marinematters 3 NEWS Oceanographic drivers of bleaching in the GBR: from observations to prediction WRITTEN BY: CRAIG STEINBERG (AIMS) Mass coral bleaching has occurred on The three-year project is funded under discoverable to researchers and managers the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) and Torres the National Environmental Science via a gateway/summary webpage. These Strait in 2016 and 2017 as part of a Programme (NESP) Tropical Water include hundreds of temperature loggers continuous global bleaching event that Quality Hub and is being undertaken deployed along the GBR by AIMS, started in late 2014 (NOAA). The combined by researchers from Australian Institute weather stations and the use of IMOS effect has meant that the majority of of Marine Science (AIMS) and CSIRO remote sensing, moorings and glider the reef has been severely affected. in partnership with the Bureau of deployments. This publicly available and Meteorology (BoM) and National Oceanic quality-controlled data set will allow the A new project is looking to understand and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). most comprehensive understanding yet how local or reef scale, regional and of how individual coral reefs faired. global oceanographic and meteorological The project is structured in processes influence the