The Pacific Islands Ocean Observing System (PacIOOS) is a partnership of data providers and users working together to enhance ocean observations and develop, disseminate, evaluate and apply ocean data and information products designed to address the needs of stakeholders who call the Pacific Islands home.
The PacIOOS Governing Council has approved the PacIOOS Strategic Operational Plan for 2013-2018. This document outlines the program's goals, objectives, and action items within each of our focus areas for the next five years. The Plan demonstrates a continued commitment to a process that builds and sustains a resilient observing system throughout the Pacific for the coming years.
PacIOOS is excited to announce that ocean enthusiasts, researchers, resource managers, and the general public now have a new interactive online mapping platform with the release of "Voyager" (http://pacioos.org/voyager).
Read more at the October, 2012 newsletter.
When the tragic events in Japan occurred in March 2011, PacIOOS realized that there was not one website to turn to that included all the real-time water level stations across the Pacific Ocean. But that is exactly what concerned citizens across the Pacific wanted to see. Recently, PacIOOS filled this gap by integrating every real-time water level station on the planet into our Hawai'i Data Explorer. Read more.
Captain Roger Antonio navigated his 35-foot Force, China Girl, in waters off Hawai'i Island to deploy a new PacIOOS Datawell Mark II Waverider Buoy about 6.5 nautical miles northeast of Hilo Harbor. Read more.
PacIOOS recently integrated the real-time data from all of the Waverider buoys in the U.S., as well as the National Data Buoy Center (NDBC) moored buoys to the Hawai'i Data Explorer. This enables PacIOOS users to view coastal and open ocean wave data nation-wide. PacIOOS users can also plot, subset, and download the data directly from the data explorer.
PacIOOS is excited to add the Pacific Marine Resources Institute (PMRI) as a signatory partner. PMRI is a non-profit environmental organization based on Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands. Read more.
The Pacific Islands Ocean Observing System (PacIOOS), a regional component of the Integrated Ocean Observing System, deployed a new Datawell Mark II Waverider Buoy north of Kahului off the Island of Maui, Hawaii. PacIOOS says this buoy will help to inform safe transit entering and exiting Kahului Harbor, provide real-time data to recreational ocean users (e.g., surfers, sailors, paddlers), and provide critical information for coastal hazard and low-lying inundation forecasts for north-facing shores. Streaming data on wave height, direction, period, and water temperature from this buoy and six others in the PacIOOS Region can be found at the PacIOOS website (www.pacioos.org), the Coastal Data Information Program at Scripps Institution of Oceanography (http://cdip.ucsd.edu), and via Twitter @buoy51205.
Plotting of monk seal locations, animating of movement patterns, and exploration of how seal movement ties in to the physical environment.
In partnership with NOAA and the Monk Seal Research Program, the Pacific Islands Ocean Observing System (PacIOOS) began providing select tracks of information on monk seals in the Hawaiian Islands earlier this summer. You can plot monk seal locations, animate movement patterns, and explore how seal movement ties in to the physical environment. Click here for an example of one monk seal's movement patterns: http://goo.gl/nCXuE.
Additionally, an international team of researchers, conservationists, commercial dive operators and government agencies joined together to deploy and operate an array of acoustic devices to monitor the movement of sharks in the waters of Palau. This array, the first of its kind in the waters of Micronesia, supports Palau's world-leading effort to conserve and protect sharks within the whole of their Exclusive Economic Zone. Initially established by the Micronesian Shark Foundation, the Save Our Seas Foundation, and the Australian Institute of Marine Science, the 14-station array recently expanded with funding from NOAA through PacIOOS. The investment is targeted at increasing the density and geographic range of stations -- providing a more precise and complete picture of shark movement in the Palauan archipelago.
“Sharks are a sentinel species in the global ocean and are important for ensuring the health of all ocean species in the future,” said PacIOOS Director, Chris E. Ostrander. “Sharks populations worldwide are threatened by increasing illegal fin fishing and a shifting climate. The Government of Palau’s dedication to conserving shark populations in their waters is an extraordinary step to helping shark populations recover and we are pleased to be able to assist, with our partners, in providing necessary information on shark movement, migration, and mating.”
Press Release by the U.S. Embassy - International Partnership Expands Shark Research in Palau
PacIOOS is also working to make tracks of tuna and turtles across the region available in the near future.
Coral reef managers in the U.S. Pacific Islands will now receive early warning of dangerous environmental conditions that can weaken and kill high value coral reefs. The recent accomplishment is a result of a partnership between NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) and the Pacific Islands Ocean Observing System (PacIOOS), a regional entity of the U.S. Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS).
PacIOOS contributed a suite of sensors to a new coral observing station added in Lao Lao Bay, Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands. The station is a first-of-its-kind for the Pacific region and joins a network of three other existing Coral Reef Early Warning System (CREWS) stations established in the U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, and the Cayman Islands. The sensors monitor ocean conditions, such as air temperature, wind speed and gusts, wind direction, barometric pressure, precipitation, light above and below water, sea temperature, salinity, and state of tide. This information detects warm water conditions that could trigger a coral bleaching event. The station also monitors impacts from sediment and algae blooms that can degrade healthy reefs.
The data goes to NOAA’s National Data Buoy Center (NDBC) and is included in the World Meteorological Organization’s Global Telecommunications System, making it available for use by weather services all over the world.
Researchers and managers will use collected data to understand the complex physical, chemical and biological processes influencing the health of coral reef ecosystems so that they can better conserve, protect, and manage reef systems.
This integrated observing and information system provides information to address:
The followinmg resources were produced by PacIOOS:
PacIOOS One Pager (pdf)
Voyager Flyer (pdf)
Climate Change One Pager (pdf)
Coastal and Marine Spatial Planning (CMSP) One Pager (pdf)
Sea Level Rise (pdf)
El Niño (pdf)
The following were produced by the IOOS Program Office:
Fact Sheet, 2012 (pdf)
One-Pager, 2011:
IOOS in Action: The U.S. Pacific Islands (pdf)
http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/pacioos/data_access/
The Pacific Islands Ocean Observing System makes several products and tools available online.
Heather Kerkering, Director: Heather.Kerkering@hawaii.edu
IOOS Program Office Regional Coordination:
Jenifer Rhoades