Amidst record-breaking sea-surface temperatures, a capricious “super” El Nino, and troublingly puzzling Gulf Stream variations, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) and its 900-odd instruments off the Atlantic and Pacific seaboards of the United States and beyond are to be stricken over the next 15 months per an executive order from the Oval Office.
The decommissioning of the $368m system that is already in place will begin two decades ahead of its initially proposed 30-year tenure, according to a rather curt statement from the National Science Foundation (NSF).
The OOI’s instruments are both moored and in motion (underwater gliders), all continuously gathering real-time data, including everything from open-ocean chemistry to shifting of currents—no small matter of concern at this given juncture. Built for the long haul, they are hyper robust, designed to handle pressure and salinity at depth beyond the abilities of most ocean instruments.
And now they shall be plucked—to the detriment of the surfing community, to be sure, but also to maritime traffic and coastal- and coastal-adjacent populations (roughly 129 million, or 40 percent of all U.S. citizens, per NOAA).
The equipment to be sent back to terra firma will be recovered from the Irminger Sea, Station Papa, Endurance and Pioneer Arrays, and though technically underway, the swiftness of the operation is “subject to ship scheduling and other operational constraints. All recovered equipment,” the press release from the NSF adds, “will be retained by the operating institution pending further guidance from NSF.” In other words, it will likely sit dormant until, with any luck, another administration will call for its worthy service.
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The OOI Regional Cabled Array or RCA, the U.S.’s first ocean observatory to span a tectonic plate, will, at least “for the foreseeable future,” remain in place. That system provides real-time data and facilitates two-way communication from 140-plus instruments along the seafloor and across the (~560-mile-wide) Juan de Fuca plate.
“We encourage the community to use the ten-plus years of OOI data by including it in proposals, publications, presentations, and conversations with colleagues. Continued engagement demonstrates the scientific impact and wide-ranging applications enabled by the OOI and its data, underscoring its importance as a resource for the oceanographic community.”
Being part and parcel of the UNESCO Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission’s Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS), the removal of the OOI gear stings the critical ocean-research efforts of the globe at large.
Wherever your spirit falls on the spectrum of kabuki theater that suffices for current affairs, a loss of pioneering ocean-data gathering is, surely, a loss for one and all.
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