Global Oceans

Deep sea research programprogram project 1: the Global seamounts project will host a multi-year series of Global research expeditions to 20 or more deep-sea seamounts to conduct intensive scientific surveys of these undersea ecosystems. Aggregated data from the surveys will be hosted in the cloud and made accessible to international teams of biophysical modelers. Multiple ecosystem and phsyical models will be modified and hosted by the project and run as a modeling ensemble, with common datasets from the field surveys, for generating a range of outputs including future potential ecosystem scenarios, standard metrics, and emergent properties arising from climate change and human impact. The development of this new integrated computational model for complex ecosystem function for seamounts, populated with new field data, will uniquely contribute to the ability to sustainably manage and conserve one of the largest biomes in the ocean.program project 2: engineering and cost proposals for rebuilding Global Oceans' deep-sea rovs and towed sensor vehicle acquired from oceaneering in 2020 have been developed that will result in a new suite of dedicated scientific deep-sea robotic vehicles. The rebuilt vehicles and operating support equipment will expand deep-sea (6,000 meter) research and observation capacity. Global Oceans will utilize these systems in its program projects and will offer to operate them for the scientific community at large for other scientific research projects.

Regional science consortia programglobal Oceans is working with scientists and institutions in the indo-pacific region, and with intergovernmental bodies, to develop expedition projects in the indian ocean and wider indo-pacific that will enable collaboration and cost sharing. Programs in development include an annual indian ocean trasect (aiot) project that will expand oceanographic measurements in this understudied region. This project is also working with the ioc and regional national science organizations to develop new hands-on oceanographic field training curricula for students and early career scientists in the region that will be hosted by Global Oceans on aiot expeditions.

Arctic research programthe sasx arctic baseline project is an initiative under development that proposes to charter commercial sector icebreaking vessels and other platforms, mobilize the vessels for scientific research with modular science workspace systems, and to host an internationally-supported annual series of research expeditions over the next 10 years. The expeditions are designed to replicate and extend on a seasonal basis selected core datasets obtained from national icebreaking research vessels participating in the recently completed, single-year international synoptic arctic survey (sas). Sasx will add value to sas ocean data by adding a time-series dimension to the one-year sas "snapshot" of arctic conditions, to capture annual change at greater resolution, reflecting the fact that the arctic is changing more rapidly than other regions on earth. Global Oceans' ability to charter and scientifically mobilize icebreaking vessels on a demand basis for the project enables an intensive annual capacity to extend these datasets that would be difficult or impossible to schedule with dedicated national research vessels.

Atmospheric science programthe atmospheric instrumentation suite (ais) project is a new scientific infrastructure and program management proposal developed by Global Oceans and argonne national laboratory, a government-contracted laboratory of the us department of energy (doe). Joint ownership and management is proposed to build and operate a series of mobile atmospheric observatories certified for installation on ships. This project will expand capacity for atmospheric observations over the world's Oceans, which current represents a significant gap in ground-based observations, especially for climate modeling. The project will benefit from Global Oceans' marv vessel model, including use of chartered polar icebreakers in the arctic ocean, to host the ais systems. As a nongovernmental, nonprofit, international project, these new observatories will expand scientific capacity in a way that is flexible and globally collaborative.

The Global seamounts project (gsp) is a mulidisciplinary, internatonal project to conduct deep-sea research expeditions on seamounts in the atlantic, pacific, and indians Oceans, to comprehensively survey these highly biodiverse marine ecosystems. Sustained ship operations will be enabled by Global Oceans' marv research ship model. Expedition data will uniquely populate an ensemble of leading ecosystem models to generate future productivity and sustainablity outcomes driven by alternative climate and human impact scenarios. The new model will also integrate with emerging "digital twins" of earth systems, to better understand ecological tipping points and optimum marine conservation strategies. The project will utilize Global Oceans' 6,000-meter rov, the explorer 6000 oev, to be rebuilt as an advanced system for deep-sea sampling and observations. This project incorporates expedition and educational activities developed within the indo-pacific collaborative program.

The innerspace deep sea science initiative is a new collaboration between Global Oceans and the center for life in extreme environments (clee) at portland state university to design and build new technologies for deep sea observations and sampling at the micro- and nano-scale. The program will host new research, student training, and public outreach focused on understanding adaptations to extreme marine environments in the abyssal-pelagic realm, on hydrothermal vents, and other unique habitats. New technologies will also support research with implications for human health and novel drug discovery. The project will utilize Global Oceans' second 6,000-meter rov to be rebuilt as the innerspace 6000 oev, an advanced modular robotic platform; together with our innerspace 6000 tia, an advanced towed instrument array.

The atmospheric ocean observatory (aoo) will build and deploy an advanced mobile, multi-module, ocean-going atmospheric and oceanographic measurement system, specially certified for deployment on ships chartered by Global Oceans, including on polar icebreakers. The aoo will be a Global, nonprofit scientific facility to expand capacity for measuring essential climate variables (ecvs) including aerosols, greenhouse gases, and ocean data. The project is internationally collaborative and will fill important data gaps for understanding climate change and for modeling poorly understood asian monsoon systems. Major philanthropic support is being sought for building and operating the facility.

Rental of deep sea winches for mission-related activities