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FAIR Data Practices for Marine Ecological Time Series

Posted by hbenway 
· Sunday, June 1st, 2025 

International Workshop: FAIR Data Practices for Ship-based Marine Ecological Time Series 

April 22-25, 2025 (ASU/BIOS, Bermuda)

Photo credits: O. Arsenault (above) and B. Siddle (ASU/BIOS) (feature photo)

Sustained ocean time series measurements are fundamental to distinguish between natural and human-induced variability in ecosystems and processes required to advance ecological forecasting. Since 2007, OCB has led and contributed to numerous efforts and activities in support of building a global network of ocean time series with the aims of elevating the visibility and utility of these observing assets for understanding climate-ecosystem links and improving coordination, communication, and scientific synthesis products across ocean time series programs1.

A lack of Marine Ecological Time Series (METS) data and metadata reporting standards, combined with numerous disconnected data management efforts, makes it exceedingly difficult for prospective time series data users to find and gain access to these valuable and unique datasets. For many of the biogeochemical and biological parameters that are unique to ship-based METS, there is an urgent need to develop consensus on community-adopted data and metadata reporting standards that will make these data more Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR)2. An NSF EarthCube-funded METS Research Coordination Network was established in 2021, with leadership from OCB, Biological & Chemical Oceanography Data Management Office (BCO-DMO), and the Hawai’i Ocean Time-series (HOT) program. The goals of this RCN were to: Develop and build consensus around FAIR data solutions for ship-based ocean time series; broaden METS data users and applications; and build capacity for METS data analysis, statistics, and data-model integration. Small group meetings over the past three years, including an in-person meeting in Boston in April 2023 have enabled members of the time series and data science communities to develop initial use cases for biogeochemical and biological variables commonly measured by METS. Parallel to this effort, a METS RCN leadership team member led the development of a pilot biogeochemical ocean time series data product3 with funding from EuroSea. As its final community activity, the METS RCN hosted an invitational FAIR Data Workshop that convened 60 (45 in person, 15 virtual) time series program representatives, informatics and data management experts, and data repository managers. The goals of the workshop were to:

  • Build capacity & provide tools to guide FAIR implementation for marine ecological time series
  • Share metadata templates for commonly measured ecological and biogeochemical parameters
  • Share & discuss tools/resources for data visualization, synthesis & analysis, citation (DOI), decision support
  • Update time series sampling & analytical methods recommendations
  • Build community - share science outcomes, challenges & opportunities

The agenda included a mix of plenary and poster sessions, breakout discussions, and small group activities to share FAIR tools and approaches for METS data sets, including draft metadata reporting templates for commonly measured ecological variables and a FAIR data primer to help METS PIs learn more about their (and their repositories’) roles in implementing FAIR data practices. Ultimately, we want these data sets to be as discoverable as possible to increase and broaden their use (which keeps them supported!).

In addition to documenting the outcomes of the RCN and workshop in a report, we aim to finalize and distribute the draft metadata templates and FAIR data primer. Pending continued community interest and engagement, we aim to involve additional globally distributed METS programs in the implementation of FAIR data protocols, METS data products, and community building activities, including proposing a science session at the upcoming 2026 Ocean Sciences Meeting and increasing time series dataset discoverability via the UN Decade-endorsed Ocean InfoHub. Future products and activities will be shared via OCB communication channels.

Relevant Resources

1. Benway, H. M., L. Lorenzoni, A. E. White, B. Fiedler, N. M. Levine, D. P. Nicholson, M. D. DeGrandpre, H. M. Sosik, M. J. Church, T. D. O’Brien, M. Leinen, R. A. Weller, D. M. Karl, S. A. Henson, R. M. Letelier (2019).Ocean time series observations of changing marine ecosystems: An era of integration, synthesis, and societal applications. Frontiers in Marine Science, https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2019.00393.

2. Benway, H., J. Buck, L. Fujieki, D. Kinkade, L. Lorenzoni, M. Schildhauer, A. Shepherd, A. White (2020). NSF EarthCube Workshop for Shipboard Ocean Time Series Data Meeting Report. 59 pp. DOI 10.1575/1912/25480.

3. Lange, N., Fiedler, B., Álvarez, M., Benoit-Cattin, A., Benway, H., Buttigieg, P. L., Coppola, L., Currie, K., Flecha, S., Gerlach, D. S., Honda, M., Huertas, I. E., Lauvset, S. K., Muller-Karger, F., Körtzinger, A., O'Brien, K. M., Ólafsdóttir, S. R., Pacheco, F. C., Rueda-Roa, D., Skjelvan, I., Wakita, M., White, A., and Tanhua, T.: Synthesis Product for Ocean Time Series (SPOTS) – a ship-based biogeochemical pilot, Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 16, 1901–1931, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-16-1901-2024, 2024.

OCB2025 schedule – science, connection, community

Posted by mmaheigan 
· Tuesday, May 20th, 2025 

Join us June 2-6: OCB2025 online Summer Science Workshop for a week of science, connection, and community

Register today. There is no fee to attend the virtual workshop.

Our OCB2025 sessions are:

Constraining the dark ocean carbon cycle: Implications for ocean carbon budgets? (Co-chairs: Anne Dekas, Anela Choy, Jeff Bowman, Randie Bundy)

Rivers to coasts: Biogeochemical linkages and environmental resilience (joint with North American Carbon Program) (Co-chairs: Fei Da, Kanchan Maiti, Shaily Rahman, Libby Larson, David Butman)

Rapidly changing systems (Co-chairs: Kristen Krumhardt, Rachel Stanley, Melissa Melendez)

Bridging scales in the ocean carbon cycle (Co-chairs: Zachary Erickson, Tim DeVries, Roo Nicholson, Daniel Whitt, Dreux Chappell)

Get local! Spend time with local OCBer's in your community. We encourage you to organize a low key gathering during OCB week in your local town, city, institution - a watch party, a hike, happy hour, park picnic?

View the gatherings...don't see anything in your area? Propose one!

Learn more + register for zoom

See the draft schedule

PAUSE on all bulk travel requests

Posted by mmaheigan 
· Friday, May 2nd, 2025 

Until further notice, OCB will not be able to consider bulk travel support requests.

We will post an announcement if this changes.

Leaky Deltas workshop summary

Posted by mmaheigan 
· Thursday, April 10th, 2025 

The Leaky Deltas OCB workshop was held 17-20 March 2025 at Louisiana State University, in Baton Rouge, USA, which is situated within the Mississippi River delta. We brought together 57 members of the research community who study river deltas in the context of the global carbon cycle. The goal of the workshop was to create a community consensus on the state of delta carbon cycle science, identify critical knowledge gaps, and brainstorm opportunities and priorities for future research efforts. Participants ranged in career stage from graduate student to senior scientist, and from disciplines ranging from biogeochemistry to geomorphology, river scientists to oceanographers; and scientists using a variety of methodological approaches.

The workshop included five oral sessions, four breakout sessions, numerous opportunities for discussion over meals and coffee breaks, a trip to the LSU Center for River Studies, and a workshop dinner. The breakout sessions were formatted to encourage discussion among interdisciplinary groups of scientists at different career stages. During breakout session 1, participants were randomly assigned to groups that spanned career stages and expertise. This session was aimed at identifying grand challenges in delta carbon cycle science. Breakout session 2 had a disciplinary focus, where we broke out into groups of biogeochemistry, geomorphology, modeling, and ecosystems. Breakout session 3 was broken out into groups based on physical domains of the delta: river, wetlands, subaqueous delta, shelf, and continental slope. A highlight of day three was a field trip to the LSU Center for River Studies, where workshop participants were guided on a tour of the historical changes of the Mississippi River Delta, as well as the large-scale physical model of the delta. On the fourth and final day of the workshop, we had short break-out sessions and reconvened as a whole to synthesize ideas and circle back to the workshop objectives.

In summary, the workshop resulted in a consensus on the key knowledge gaps and research grand challenges, which included constraining the composition of organic matter, the timescales of geomorphic processes, biogeochemical reaction rates, impacts of human perturbations and extreme events, and challenges in monitoring deltaic processes. Workshop participants now have the task of writing a position paper that summarizes these grand research challenges, identifies the data needed to address these challenges, and recommends a framework and directions for future research. One outcome of the workshop included the structure and organization for this paper. The early career workshop participants will also lead an early-career-led perspective paper that discusses ideas for integrating new technologies and methodologies to address these grand challenges and identifies future challenges for the delta science community.

Learn more about this workshop

New: Connecting Observations to Models

Posted by mmaheigan 
· Thursday, April 10th, 2025 

Ombres, E., H. Benway, K. Bisson, A. Larkin, L. Perotti, L. Wright-Fairbanks (eds.) (2024). Connecting Observations to Models: Biogeochemical Observing and Modeling Workshop, 2024 Summary Report and Suggested Steps Forward. Published Date: 2024 Series: NOAA technical memorandum OAR-OAP ; 6, DOI: https://doi.org/10.25923/wpdj-ja69

Welcoming new SSC members!

Posted by mmaheigan 
· Friday, February 14th, 2025 

Welcome to the four new and one continuing SSC members!

Jason Graff (Oregon State Univ.) (2027) Biooptics, satellite remote sensing

Bror Jönsson (Univ. New Hampshire) (2027) – biological production across land-open ocean continuum, coastal ocean acidification, interactions between physical dynamics in the upper ocean and biological production, phytoplankton dynamics, and air-sea exchange, connectivity combining observations, analysis of large dataset, remote sensing and algorithm development

Jonathan Lauderdale (Massachusetts Inst. of Technology) (2027) –  biogeochemistry, global carbon, nutrient, and trace metal cycles, past climates, physical oceanography, and processes occurring in high latitude regions such as the Southern Ocean.

Sarah Mincks (Univ. Alaska Fairbanks) (2027) benthic-pelagic coupling, marine organism-mediated carbon cycling

Shaily Rahman (Univ Colorado, Boulder) (2027, second term) – marine biogeochemistry and sedimentary processes

Thank you to Jeff Bowman (SIO), Susanne Craig (NASA GSFC), Tim DeVries (UCSB), and Zachary Erickson (NOAA PMEL) for your OCB work over the past three years!

New workshop report: Ecological Forecasting

Posted by mmaheigan 
· Wednesday, December 18th, 2024 
New workshop report from the joint OCB-US CLIVAR 2022 workshop Daily to Decadal Ecological Forecasting along North American Coastlines
Capotondi, A., Coles, V. J., Clayton, S., Friedrichs, M., Gierach, M., Miller, A. J., and Stock, C. 2024. Daily to Decadal Ecological Forecasting Along North American Coastlines Workshop Report. 54pp. doi: 10.1575/1912/70991

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Funding for the Ocean Carbon & Biogeochemistry Project Office is provided by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The OCB Project Office is housed at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.