Ocean science and conservation, like any human enterprise, is subject to its fair share of internal messiness from time to time.  As someone whose expertise and experience intersects several discrete domains (coral reefs, sharks, marine protected areas, and policy), I’ve witnessed plenty of dust-ups, arguments, and spats over the years.  And this week’s flurry of discussion instigated by a New York Times editorial on ocean protected areas is just the latest kerfuffle. In his op-ed, Bigger Is Not Better for Conservation, coral reef scientist and California Academy of Sciences curator, Dr Luiz Rocha, argues that large-scale, remote marine reserves are a disservice to ocean conservation.  It’s Dr Rocha’s perspectives, however, that seem more damaging.

Rocha’s argument hinges on four key points:

1. The current tally of big, remote marine reserves is in low-conflict, easy to protect (ie, low-hanging fruit) areas of the ocean where human reliance upon them is negligible and therefore government willingness to protect is strong;
2. There’s nothing worth protecting in these big, remote areas;
3. More important, smaller, near-shore ocean areas with high levels of human use are in dire need of protection;
4. Marine protected areas should be science-based (eg, protected zones should be guided by “sustainable catch limits” of commercially targeted species).

Let’s go one-by-one to see if any of these points hold water. [Note: For the sake of brevity, I’ll be using the acronym MPA frequently in this piece for “marine protected area,” but it will also serve as shorthand for “marine reserve,” “protected area,” “locally managed marine area,” or “marine managed area.”  I recognize that an MPA may not be managed or enforced, but let’s forego that technicality for the moment.]

POINT 1: “Big MPAs are easy and less consequential.”
As of today, there are approximately 20 large-scale protected areas across the ocean (ranging from tens-of-thousands to millions of square kilometers in protected area).  This includes a range from the Marianas Marine National Monument’s 16,400 square kilometers to the 1.15 million square kilometers of the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument in Hawai’i.  These MPAs may consist of fully-protected, no-take (no fishing/extraction) designation to protection that still allows multiple uses.  According to the folks at MPA Atlas, there are approximately 15,000 small, coastal MPAs around the world.  Some of these, like Cordelia Banks off the island of Roatan in the Bay of Honduras, encompass only 17 square kilometers.  Many are even smaller.  Totaling all of the massive/remote and small/near-shore MPAs together gets us to approximately 2% of the ocean under some form of protection.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) World Conservation Congress, held in Hawai’i in September 2016, called for member nations to set aside “30% of each marine habitat” in “highly protected MPAs and other effective area-based conservation measures” by 2030, with the ultimate aim being ”a fully sustainable ocean, at least 30% of which has no extractive activities.”

For rhetorical effect, I’ll reiterate that as of March 23, 2018, only 2% of our global oceans is protected, and 2030 is only twelve years away.

As someone in the MPA biz, I can testify that there are at present a small handful of big, deep-pocketed, international NGOs working on big international MPAs: The Pew Charitable Trusts, Conservation International, Oceana, and National Geographic. These folks have the gravitas, influence, and resources to capture heads of state attention and convene forums necessary to get things done.  You can bitch all you want about the pros and cons, but this is the reality.  Alongside the big NGOs, there are tens-to-hundreds of small to medium-sized NGOs that are working simultaneously on everything from big/remote MPAs to smaller/near-shore MPAs.  Sometimes the big NGOs work in concert with the smaller ones.  Sometime not.  It’s all site dependent.

Having worked on everything from massive MPAs to tiny MPAs over my career, I can say that none of them were “easy wins.”  So-called “low hanging fruit” may represent a unique opportunity in time.  You may have a receptive government or local community that welcomes the process.  It’s always easier to work with the willing than the resistant.  But every MPA effort in which I’ve participated involved strategy, identifying champions, public consultations, negotiations, community organizing, building political will, battling nefarious characters, rebooting strategy, sweating-out votes, and of course finding funds to support all of this.  If there are “easy wins” out there, big or small, I sure would appreciate someone pointing me in that direction.

Protecting big/remote areas or smaller/near-shore areas is not an either/or game.  This is not a binary proposition of doing one or the other.  It’s a yes/also.  We need to protect small, not so small, medium, larger, big, bigger, and massive tracts of the ocean.  We need to protect what is easy to protect, and what is harder to protect.  We must gather every bit of low-hanging fruit, and plan to reach the currently out-of-reach fruit.  MPAs occupy a spectrum or continuum, and we need to be prepared to work with everything along that spectrum.  Some NGOs will have a mandate (and talent) for pursuing big swaths of ocean.  Others are more tuned to work on local needs.  But there is a lot of real estate between the biggest and smallest MPAs for organizations, individuals, and yes, even FUNDERS to find their niche.

POINT 2: “There’s nothing worth protecting.”
This is just wholesale wrong.  What is Rocha considering as “worth” protection?  Certainly, there are species whose entire life cycle may be captured by the boundaries of an MPA.  Other species may only spend a portion of their lives within the boundaries of protection.  Protected areas are designed to factor in these variables.  But not all MPAs are envisioned around biological significance alone.  The Monitor National Marine Sanctuary in North Carolina, the very first marine national monument designated by the United States in 1975, honors the historic significance of the shipwreck of the famed Civil War ironclad, USS Monitor.  Similarly, the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument and the entire Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, including the 110 seamounts, open waters, and all life in that area are considered biocultural resources and linked to the Hawaiian people through environmental kinship.

The ocean as a cultural seascape is vital to Hawaiian identity, their being, and essential dimension to their cognitive understanding of the world.  The ocean waters in Papahānaumokuākea were an ancient pathway for a voyaging sphere that occurred between this region and the main Hawaiian islands for over 400-500 years (ca. AD 1300-1800).  The practice of traditional wayfinding and voyaging—recently popularized in the film Moana and which is one of the most unique living traditions of the world—requires protection of the entire marine environment and open waters, not just the islands and reefs, because it relies on biological signs and natural phenomenon, such as winds, waves, currents, and the presence of marine life and birds at key moments and locations.

At the same time as Papahānaumokuākea was successfully expanded in 2016 by President Obama, the State of Hawai’i also supporting the establishment of small, coastal community-managed makai areas, driven by and for the community.  Yes, both can happen at the same time and using the same human capital, as many of the same people fought for both the small makai areas and the big Papahānaumokuākea effort.

POINT 3: “There are more important, smaller places to protect.”
Importance is relative and subjective.  It is place-driven and context-heavy.  What is important to someone in Brazil, might be less so to someone in Hawai’i.  So instead of casting stones at our neighbors, perhaps we should recognize that there are seriously limited resources, conservation bandwidth, and political will, and try to triage our priorities.  I recognize that the reality is that not all NGOs/organizations like to play-well together.  Furthermore, some places and approaches are simply not tenable due to practical considerations and political and social realities.  Again, this is a reality of modern conservation.  But as I mention above, effective MPAs do not occupy one half of a binary state.  It’s not either small or large.  Remote or near-shore.  Fully managed/enforced or paper parks/un-enforced.  Every single MPA in existence occupies a position somewhere along a continuum of effectiveness.  Even an un-managed, unfunded, and unenforced MPA is a work in progress along that continuum.

POINT 4: “They’re not science-based.”
Science should help inform MPA zoning and designation.  No questions or arguments here.  But the science needed may at times be incomplete or lacking.  Many decisions around the world, particularly in developing nations, on “sustainable catch limits” are not acted upon because data is deficient.  Should we be expected to wait for the science to be decided and settled (whatever that might mean) before action/conservation measures can be activated?  And science is but one arrow in our quiver that we should use to scope, establish, and manage MPAs.  The social sciences and economics are also driving MPA priorities and planning.

Finally…
I find an editorial like Rocha’s to be, quite frankly, dangerous.  Staking-out a claim on one side of a false dichotomy or constructing straw man arguments is the purview of graduate school.  I get it… Rocha would like to see more love shown to near shore/coral reef areas (including where he has worked in Brazil).  But what is the benefit to conservation as a whole to publish these half-baked propositions that large, remote MPAs are a waste of time in the pages of The New York Times and under the banner of an august and internationally recognized organization like the California Academy of Sciences?  We are not currently living in normal times, and this sort of rhetoric plays right into the hands of those keen to see less ocean protection, not more.

For the first time in US history, an administration is rolling back protections on national monuments, both land and sea.  Australia just this week has announced the possibility of cutting in half the protections for the Coral Seas MPA.  Conservation in one place in the ocean is not the enemy of conservation in another place.  And MPAs are not a binary switch of either big or small…  Local or remote…  Fully protected or not.  If we are going to get to the IUCN recommended target of 30% of our oceans under strong protection by 2030, we need to ramp up protections everywhere along the MPA continuum.  Yes/Also should become our mantra!  We must embrace a process of continuous improvement in our MPA work, not display a reflex of undercutting other conservation efforts.  And we need to keep our focus and attention on the real threats to a healthy ocean: over-fishing, illegal fishing, pollution, climate change, and lack of political will for action.

The post Embracing Yes/Also: Marine Protected Areas Are Not An Either/Or Proposition first appeared on Deep Sea News.

I’m just going to come out and say it, any project that touts itself as the “World’s first realistic Ocean Clean-up Concept” is just asking to be torn apart.

“The Ocean Cleanup” is the brainchild of a 19-year old Boyan Slat. He proposes using the oceans themselves to clean up plastic. By setting up a line of giant sifting booms across the major ocean gyres, ocean currents will push plastic into these giant traps to be collected and reused for profit.  He plans to set up an array of 24 of these sifters and calculates they will clean the ocean in 5 years.

Before I add my two cents, here’s what Miriam had to say about the idea at the Marine Debris Listserv:

Dear all,

I’ve tried to stop fact-checking to every cleanup scheme, but I guess it’s an addiction at this point. Also, I feel that as a community we cannot move forward with practical solutions to marine debris until we lay some of these common misconceptions to rest. These points respond Boyan Slat’s TEDx talk, but you can also see photos of his proposal here: http://www.boyanslat.com/plastic5/ and http://www.boyanslat.com/in-depth/.

• Most zooplankton don’t survive being caught in a standard manta net, never mind being spun in a centrifuge. They might still be twitching, but they have lost a lot of their important parts, like antennae and feeding apparatus. When we want to capture live zooplankton, we use special live-collection nets and are very, very careful. For gelatinous zooplankton like salps, the only way to bring them up in good condition is to individually capture them in glass jars on SCUBA. I am highly skeptical that any significant proportion of zooplankton are viable after caught in a net and spun at 50 RPM. (though I realize that he’s not proposing to do this on a large scale.) 
• Mooring fixed “ships” in the open ocean (avg depth 4000 meters) is highly improbable for a lot of reasons. Just to pick one: I could not find data on the absolute deepest mooring in the world, but this implies that it is approximately 2,000 meters. http://www.offshore-technology.com/projects/atlantisplatform/. So these ships would have to be moored at twice the depth of one of the deepest moorings that existed ~2007. 
• Having seen no data, I can’t really speak to the efficacy of floating booms in removing microplastic. However, Giora Proskurowski & colleagues have shown that microplastic get mixed down below the surface in fairly moderate winds. These booms would be unlikely to function in any significant wind and wave action. And the mixed layer in the open ocean can get quite deep, around 100-150 meters in the winter with storms. 
• Speaking of wind and wave actions, ships on fixed moorings and thousands of miles of booms (because the scale of this is also improbable) have the potential to create a lot more marine debris, and seem particularly hazardous to entanglement-prone marine life. 
• This isn’t even getting into issues of scale (the California Current alone is ~300 miles across), maintenance and fouling…

I realize that Mr. Slat is a student, and have no doubt that he, and the inventors of countless other plastic cleanup schemes, have only the best of intentions. I am hoping we can work together as marine debris professionals to channel their energies into more productive directions.

Regards,

Miriam Goldstein

While I can’t speak to what these booms will and will not pick up, I completely agree with her I am highly skeptical whether the design is even feasible from an ocean engineering standpoint. Here are some of the major unanswered technical questions:

1) How does the sifter work?  To be honest, I am not completely sure. The website and TED talk are completely devoid of technical details. But from what I can gather from the concept art and the talk, I think the booms have large nets underneath them that gather plastic into what I think is a oversized swimming pool leaf trap shaped like a manta ray. UPDATE: I misinterpreted the images on the website. The design as it stands now has no nets, only the initial tests had nets. Now I have to ask, what is that sheet hanging down from the booms?

2) The booms.  The claim is that only 24 sifters are need to clean the ocean and span the gyre radius, which means the booms have to be huge. Possibly 100’s of kilometer wide. Are they rigid or flexible? Are they the manta rays? How will they be kept in formation?

3) Anchoring something that large.  I am going to assume that the booms need to stay relatively taut to retain their shape and the most obvious way to do this will be with multiple anchor lines. The water depths are deep (>3000 m), horizontal surface motions needs to be small and then there is all that water pushing on what is essentially a giant paddle. That means a fairly sophisticated plan for anchoring the array will have to be developed. Having seen how large anchors are for low-tension subsurface moorings (>1000 kg), I can’t even begin to imagine what they are going to use or how that is going to be set up.

4) Biofouling. I forsee two major biofouling issues. The first is biological growth, which can be particularly bad because all the major mechanical parts are near the surface. There is going to be growth on the mesh, on the booms, on everything submerged which can make the booms and nets heavy, dragging them underwater. The second is fishbite. Did you know that fish attack underwater moorings like crazed rabid zombie munchers?  Now I don’t know if fish would actually chew on the mesh, but previous experience indicates they are not picky about what pieces of underwater line they snack on. So what will happen if fish gnaw holes through the collection nets?

5) The assumption of low current speeds. This is a bad assumption. While the array may not be placed in the most energetic current regime, storms and eddies can briefly induce large currents which could place a lot of stress and shear on such a large array.

6) Zero bycatch by net avoidance .  Sorry, I couldn’t resist.

The Ocean Cleanup project is still in the planning stage, so all these problems have the potential to be solved. But I think it is highly unlikely that an array of this size and magnitude will ever be feasible.

UPDATE: Another good roundup by Micheal Cote of potential issues with the Ocean Cleanup design can be found here. http://climateadaptation.tumblr.com/post/46515698066/this-invention-keeps-popping-up-in-my-daily

UPDATE 2:  Some more critiques brought to my attention in the comments

Those Crazy Plastic Cleaning Machines

http://inhabitat.com/the-fallacy-of-cleaning-the-gyres-of-plastic-with-a-floating-ocean-cleanup-array/

The post The Ocean Cleanup. The newest of the new plans to remove marine plastic. first appeared on Deep Sea News.

The Ghost of Ocean Science Future that We Want to See

We are at a time for renewed commitment to ocean exploration and science. As stated by the Joint Ocean Commission, “Ocean programs continue to be chronically underfunded, highlighting the need for a dedicated ocean investment fund.” Captain Don Walsh, one of three men to visit the deepest part of the ocean, recently stated it best: “What we need is an Ocean NASA.”
We borrow and modify John F. Kennedy’s famous speech at Rice University on the decision to go to the moon:

In short, our leadership in science and in industry, our hopes for peace and security, our obligations to ourselves as well as others, all require us to make this effort, to solve these mysteries, to solve them for the good of all men, and to become the world’s leading ocean-faring nation…We set sail because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people.

There is much to be gained from creating NASA-style Ocean Science and Exploration Agency (OSEA). Every dollar we commit to science returns $2.21 in goods and services. Meeting the scientific, technological, logistical, and administrative demands of scientific exploration creates jobs and requires substantial personnel beyond just scientists and engineers. The materials purchased for this cause support even further employment. As with NASA, meeting these scientific and engineering challenges will disseminate ideas, knowledge, applications, and technology to rest of society. This knowledge gained from basic research will form the backbone for applied research and economic gain later. And much like NASA has, OSEA will inspire the next generation of scientist and engineers, instilling in the young a renewed appreciation for the oceans of which we are all stewards: our oceans. It will provide a positive focus for society in a time where hope is often lacking and faith in science is low. OSEA will be the positive message that renews interest in our oceans and their conservation.

What Does an OSEA look like? At the core OSEA would need a mission dedicated to basic research and exploration of the >;90% of the world’s oceans that remain unexplored. High risk with the potential for high impact would be the norm. Pioneering knows no other way to achieve those truly novel and impactful gains.

To achieve these goals, OSEA would need substantial infrastructure and fleet including international and regional class research vessels, a submersible, remotely operated vehicles, and autonomous underwater vehicles. Funding would need to be secure on decadal cycles to insure both the longevity and permanence of this mission but allow for oversight to ensure OSEA was meeting its mission and financial responsibilities. An ocean exploration center would be staffed with a vibrant community of researchers, engineers, and administrators, postdoctoral fellows, graduate students, and visiting experts with a strong interacting and supportive community working toward uncovering the mysteries of the oceans. Research would be funded internally from a broad OSEA budget, not externally, freeing scientists and engineers to actually do science and engineering as opposed to the only current option, which is writing grants to other agencies with a less than 10% chance of funding.

OSEA would also be a resource both for the research community and the public by being dedicated to open science, i.e. making scientific research, data and dissemination accessible to all levels of an inquiring society, amateur or professional. Publications, data, software, and engineering would be freely available and open to all. All internal processes would be transparent.

The mission of OSEA in the spirit of open science would be equally dedicated to public outreach. For too long have science and society been disconnected. OSEA would involve the public as the ultimate funders of our work. A novel and cutting edge education and outreach group would develop a strategic plan to involve children and adults in the mission. There would be multiple opportunities for anyone to be involved including the public. Citizen scientists would be essential components, allowing adults to take a residence and contribute to OSEA and become life long ambassadors long after their residence.

Although parts of OSEA are realized in other government and private organizations, they do not meet the full mission nor can such a distributed structure be expected to meet the challenges of this pivotal moment. For example, NOAA fills a much-needed role but its mission is largely applied. NOAA’s mission statement is “Science, Service, and Stewardship. To understand and predict changes in climate, weather, oceans, and coasts, To share that knowledge and information with others, and To conserve and manage coastal and marine ecosystems and resource”. Contrast that to NASA’s simple mission, “to pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery and aeronautics research.”

In an agency with a chiefly applied mission, those programs that are purely exploratory must eventually invent an applied focus or face the axe. For example, even under NURP, exploration often focused on corals and fish of considerable economic and conservation importance rather than those species of greatest novelty or knowledge deficit. The current situation at NOAA also highlights how less applied scientific programs are likely to be lost. Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute also provides another model that comes close to OSEA but is heavily reliant on private funding that can often be significantly reduced during recessions as endowments shrink. Moreover, a private foundation is unlikely to meet the full financial burden to support the full mission of an OSEA or provide a resource to the ocean science community as whole. This is not meant to criticize either NOAA or MBARI, indeed both supported our own research and have made immense contributions to ocean science and exploration, but neither do they fully realize our vision for OSEA.

As John F. Kennedy stated, “We must be bold.” It is time for a great national effort of the United States of America, time for us to renew our commitment to uncovering the mysteries of the blue planet we live on. We need a NASA-style Ocean Science and Exploration Agency (OSEA). to explore and research the greatest depths of oceans with a community of scientists, engineers, and citizens.

Read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3

The post We Need an Ocean NASA Now Pt.3 first appeared on Deep Sea News.

The Ghost of Ocean Science Past
85% of Americans express concerns about stagnant research funding and 77% feel we are losing our edge in science. So how did we get here?  Part of the answer lies in how ocean science and exploration fit into the US federal science funding scene.  Ocean science is funded by numerous agencies, with few having ocean science and exploration as a clear directive. Contrast to this to how the US traditionally dealt with exploration of space. NASA was recognised early on as the vehicle by which the US would establish and maintain international space supremacy, but the oceans have always had to compete with other missions.

We  faced a weak economy and in tough economic times we rightly looked for areas to adjust our budgets. Budget cuts lead to tough either/or situations: do we fund A or B?  Pragmatically we choose what appeared to be most practical and yield most benefit. Often this meant we prioritized applied science because it was perceived to benefit our lives sooner and more directly and, quite frankly, was easier to justify politically the expenditures involved.

In addition to historical issues of infrastructure and current economic woes, we lacked an understanding of the importance of basic research and ocean exploration to science, society, and often to applied research.  As example, NOAA shifted funding away from NURP and basic science and exploration but greatly increased funding to research on applied climate change research.  Increased funding for climate change research is a necessity as we face this very real and immediate threat to our environment and economy.  Yet, did this choice, and others like it, need to come at the reduction of our country’s capability to conduct basic ocean exploration and science and which climate change work relies upon?

Just a few short decades ago, the U.S. was a pioneer of deep water exploration.  We are the country that in 1960 funded and sent two men to the deepest part of the world’s ocean in the Trieste.  Five years later, we developed, built, and pioneered a new class of submersible capable of reaching some of the most remote parts of the oceans to nimbly explore and conduct deep-water science.  Our country’s continued commitment to the DSV Alvin is a bright spot in our history and has served as model for other countries’ submersible programs.  The Alvin allowed us to be the first to discover hydrothermal vents and methane seeps, explore the Mid-Atlantic ridge, and countless other scientific firsts.  Our rich history with space exploration is dotted with firsts and it revolutionized our views of the world and universe around us; so has our rich history of ocean exploration.  But where NASA produced a steady stream of occupied space research vehicles, Alvin remains the only deep-capable research submersible in the service in the United States.

Read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3

The post We Need an Ocean NASA Now Pt.2 first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Over a decade ago, one of us (CM) made his first submersible dive off of Rum Cay in the Bahamas.  At the surface the temperature was a warm 91˚F and at the bottom 2,300 feet down the temperature was near freezing.  Despite my large size, I don’t remember feeling cramped inside the soda can-sized sub at any moment. The entire time I pressed my face against a 6-inch porthole, my cheek against the cool glass, and focused my eyes on the few feet of illuminated sea floor around me and the miles of black beyond.  Here in the great depths of oceans I got my first look at the giant isopod, a roly-poly the size of a large shoe. This beast and the surrounding abyss instantly captured my imagination, launching me on a journey of ocean science and exploration to unravel the riddles of life in the deep.

A thousand miles away, off the coast of Yucatan Mexico, the other of us (AD) experienced equal wonder at the discovery of the largest aggregation ever recorded of the largest of fish in the world, the whale shark.  These spotted behemoths gather annually in the hundreds off the coast of Cancun, one of the world’s most popular tourist destinations, and yet this spectacular biological was unknown to science until 2006.  Swimming among them, I reverted to a childish state of wonder, marveling at their size, power and grace, and boggling that they have probably been feeding in these waters since dinosaurs, not tourists, inhabited the Yucatan.

Whether giant fish or giant crustaceans, are opportunities to uncover the ocean’s mysteries are quickly dwindling.

The Ghost of Ocean Science Present
Our nation faces a pivotal moment in exploration of the oceans.  The most remote regions of the deep oceans should be more accessible now than ever due to engineering and technological advances.  What limits our exploration of the oceans is not imagination or technology but funding.  We as a society started to make a choice: to deprioritize ocean exploration and science.

In general, science in the U.S. is poorly funded; while the total number of dollars spent here is large, we only rank 6th in world in the proportion of gross domestic product invested into research.  The outlook for ocean science is even bleaker. In many cases, funding of marine science and exploration, especially for the deep sea, are at historical lows.  In others, funding remains stagnant, despite rising costs of equipment and personnel.

The Joint Ocean Commission Initiative, a committee comprised of leading ocean scientists, policy makers, and former U.S. secretaries and congressmen, gave the grade of D- to funding of ocean science in the U.S.  Recently the Obama Administration proposed to cut the National Undersea Research Program (NURP) within NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a move supported by the Senate.  In NOAA’s own words, “NOAA determined that NURP was a lower-priority function within its portfolio of research activities.”  Yet, NURP is one of the main suppliers of funding and equipment for ocean exploration, including both submersibles at the Hawaiian Underwater Research Laboratory and the underwater habitat Aquarius. This cut has come despite an overall request for a 3.1% increase in funding for NOAA. Cutting NURP saves a meager $4,000,000 or 1/10 of NOAA’s budget and 1,675 times less than we spend on the Afghan war in just one month.

One of the main reasons NOAA argues for cutting funding of NURP is “that other avenues of Federal funding for such activities might be pursued.”  However, “other avenues” are fading as well.  Some funding for ocean exploration is still available through NOAA’s Ocean Exploration Program.  However, the Office of Ocean Exploration, the division that contains NURP, took the second biggest cut of all programs (-16.5%) and is down 33% since 2009.  Likewise, U.S. Naval funding for basic research has also diminished.

The other main source of funding for deep-sea science in the U.S. is the National Science Foundation which primarily supports biological research through the Biological Oceanography Program.  Funding for science within this program remains stagnant, funding larger but fewer grants.  This trend most likely reflects the ever increasing costs of personnel,  equipment, and consumables which only larger projects can support.  Indeed, compared to rising fuel costs, a necessity for oceanographic vessels, NSF funds do not stretch as far as even a decade ago.

Shrinking funds and high fuel costs have also taken their toll on The University-National Oceanographic Laboratory System (UNOLS) which operates the U.S. public research fleet.  Over the last decade, only 80% of available ship days were supported through funding.  Over the last two years the gap has increasingly widened, and over the last ten years operations costs increased steadily at 5% annually.  With an estimated shortfall of $12 million, the only solution is to reduce the U.S. research fleet size. Currently this is expected to be a total of 6 vessels that are near retirement, but there is no plan of replacing these lost ships.

The situation in the U.S. contrasts greatly with other countries.  The budget for the Japanese Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) continues to increase, although much less so in recent years.  The 2007 operating budget for the smaller JAMSTEC was $527 million, over $100 million dollars more than the 2013 proposed NOAA budget.  Likewise, China is increasing funding to ocean science over the next five years and has recently succeeded in building a new deep-sea research and exploration submersible, the Jiaolong.  The only deep submersible still operating in the US is the DSV Alvin, originally built in 1968.

Read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3

The post We Need an Ocean NASA Now Pt.1 first appeared on Deep Sea News.

The post A Scientific Feast of Ocean Microbiology – notes from the #asm2012 conference in San Francisco first appeared on Deep Sea News.

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The Bible (a.k.a. Vogue) has all the news:

• Sarah Burton at McQueen raised the humble barnacle into a mesmerising jacquard-weave peplum suit and seed-pearled face lace.
• Take a dip with spring/summer 2012’s most covetable accessories – Givenchy’s shark tooth pendants, Chanel’s conch-shell clutches and Versace’s mermaid adorned totes.
• Karl Lagerfeld plunged headfirst into the watery depths for Chanel’s spring/summer 2012 show, with a catwalk covered in giant coral and crustaceans, while Florence Welch sang from inside a white shell.

The post ARE YOU EXCITED ABOUT YOUR SPRING WARDROBE YET?? first appeared on Deep Sea News.

It was refreshing to hear a government official state her steadfast optimism, and urge scientists in the audience to adopt new tools and approaches. To prevent (and effectively cope with) climate change, the public needs to be engaged. This is a new world we live in. She highlighted the importance of social media in driving a scientific revolution.

After the talk I wanted to talk directly to Jane and ask her about social media and online tools. [Sidenote: Afterwards I had to find an empty room and do a little dance – SQUEEEE!] How can we use these most effectively? What should we be doing as scientists?

She basically had no idea. The online world is so new, so untested, and everyone is sitting in the dark. There are no agency initiatives yet poised to harness the power of the internet. She said scientists should use their personality. By default, this has to start with a bottom-up approach.

If that’s the case, how the hell are we going to pull this off?

Blogs and twitter can be the jumping off point, but changing the culture of ocean science has to be so much more than that.

If you love science–and you’re in a position to make a difference–let’s work together to be the marine Steve Jobs. Scientists are busy, but we will always make time for a cause we believe in. Those of us predisposed to communicate (the Deep-sea News Crew) recognize that we must lead our brethren.

Let’s stay positive, be quirky. Bring in the humor. As Kevin noted on his recent chat with Dr. Kiki, a doom-and-gloom message doesn’t motivate anyone. We shouldn’t potray scientists as old white guy authority figures telling you what to do. I’m not your mother. I’m your neighbor, your friend.

Let’s make scientific videos that go viral. Lets teach people about the science in their *homes* and *everyday lives*. Hydrothermal vents are definitely awesome, your average Joe doesn’t run into tube worms on his commute to work. Let’s make people stakeholders in their local communities–their beaches, their coasts, their salt marshes.

I’m begging you: scientists can’t do this alone. The best science results from collaboration, and the best science communication must follow suit.

To impact society, we must connect some very distant dots. We must bring together scientists, writers, editors, techies, entrepreneurs…the list goes on. At Deep-sea News we’re desperate get everyone thinking about the oceans, but we’re also limited by time and resources. We need help from the right connections. It needs to start NOW. This one’s a game changer.

The post Jane Lubchenco’s message to scientists first appeared on Deep Sea News.

A little sentimental, but hey its Christmas time. The Tank Bangers donates proceeds of buying this song to the various groups shown at 5:40 in the video. While I do not support all those groups personally, I would like to add Oceana and The Coral Reef Alliance as conservation groups who have a high impact dollar for donation dollar. No doubt there are others!

The post TGIF – Our Blue (The Tank Bangers) first appeared on Deep Sea News.

All hand drawn, frame by frame, on a ream of paper by Kijek/Adamski to visualize the song “Pirate’s Life” by We Cut Corners

The post TGIF: Pirate’s Life first appeared on Deep Sea News.