Southern California Region (SCCOOS) Focuses on Climate and Ecosystems at the Annual Board of Governors Meeting

Julie Thomas, Executive Director of SCCOOS and SCCOOS Board of Governors chair, Libe Washburn, University of California, at the 2012 SCCOOS Board of Governors (BOG) meeting.

Julie Thomas, Executive Director of SCCOOS and SCCOOS Board of Governors chair, Libe Washburn, University of California, at the 2012 SCCOOS Board of Governors (BOG) meeting.

The SCCOOS Board of Governors (BOG) meeting met at Scripps Institute of Oceanography on 8 November. The meeting was led by Julie Thomas, Executive Director of SCCOOS and by the SCCOOS BOG chair, Libe Washburn, University of California, Santa Barbara.  Annually the BOG focuses on one of the four SCCOOS themes.  This year the theme was climate and ecosystems, with a particular emphasis on ocean acidification. 

Julie began with discussing with the board how SCCOOS is not only representing the IOOS region, but part of the national picture with Julie serving as President of the Board of the National Federation of Regional Associations and a member of the DMAC Steering Team, and with Eric Terrell serving on the IOOS Federal Advisory Committee.  Zdenka Willis, Director, US IOOS Program Office, followed up with a presentation of US IOOS national activities.  Zdenka used Dan Rudnick’s Ignite presentation to discuss the national glider plan.  Eric Terrill completed the first session talking about the IOOS Federal Advisory committee and discussed their near-term action to deliverer a statement 100 days post-election. He also gave remarks on the efforts of the national HF radar network, including the inclusion of the HF radar data into NOAA’s National Weather Service Advanced Weather Information and Products Systems (AWIPS), into model assimilation at NWS’ National Center for Environmental Prediction and inclusion into National Ocean Service’s PORTS®. 

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Zdenka Willis, Director, US IOOS Program Office, presents US IOOS national activities

Zdenka Willis, Director, US IOOS Program Office, presents US IOOS national activities

The second part of the meeting was an update by George Robertson, Orange County Sanitation District, on the use of ocean modeling for the successful diversion of outfall.  The Orange County Sanitation District (OCSD) routinely reduces flow through and shuts down the 120-inch outfall which is 4.5 miles offshore in order to perform necessary maintenance and repairs and to facilitate construction projects.  When this is done, they must use the 78 inch outfall pipe that is 1 mile offshore.   SCCOOS assisted by developing a set of products to address this effort that OCSD has relied on to understand real time oceanographic conditions. For additional information see www.sccoos.org.

The final part of the meeting was devoted to assessing SCCOOS’ current and future involvement in the topic of ocean acidification (OA).  Briefings from Steve Weisberg, Southern California Coast Water Research Project (SCCWRP), Skyli McAfee, California Ocean Science Trust, and Dennis Peterson, Carlsbad Aquafarms set the stage for the needs for ocean acidification and the efforts by the California Current Acidification Network (C-CAN).  All three of the west coast IOOS Regional Associations are involved with C-CAN and the SCCOOS BOG endorsed C-CAN as the ocean acidification system of record for the California current/West Coast.  The SCCOOS BOG also determined that OA is an important area where they do feel SCCOOS can and should contribute.  They tasked their Executive Steering Team to come back to the BOG with details on how SCCOOS can expand its current efforts to incorporate OA monitoring.

Links to Resource:

Zdenka’s presentation is available at http://ioos.gov/communications

Rudnick’s Ignite presentation and video are avaiable online:

 

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Southern California Region (SCCOOS)