Ocean Shot

 "If your dreams do not scare you, they are not big enough." 
- Ellen Johnson Sirleaf

A couple months ago, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine published a call for what they called "Ocean Shots" - big ideas for ocean research. The term is a play on "moon shot" and meant to convey a similarly ambitious level of thinking. We're talking decades-long, ten-billion-dollar ideas. In my mind, the call seemed perfectly suited for an Arctic initiative, so I approached a fellow Arctic researcher at WHOI, my colleague Sam Laney, and we started brainstorming. 

Two of the slides from my talk, showing critical processes
and questions in the Arctic (above) and the technologies
needed to address them (below). Graphics by Natalie Renier.

Together, Sam and I composed a vision for an autonomous seafloor observatory on the Arctic continental shelf. About 50% of the Arctic basin is shallow continental shelves, and these dynamic environments are rapidly being affected by climate change. Arctic shelf environments are also used for fishing, oil and gas, maritime transportation, and national defense, making them critical environments to understand and manage properly. Most ocean observatories focus on water-column processes, neglecting the seafloor. Furthermore, standard ocean observing approaches aren't well-suited to the Arctic, where sea ice constrains ship access to certain seasons. As a solution, we proposed a new model for an ocean observatory that relies on autonomy and focuses on understudied seafloor processes. Besides basic science, this style of observatory fosters innovation in key fields like robotics, sensors, and artificial intelligence, engages stakeholders outside of ocean science, develops the US workforce, and promotes equitable, sustainable development. 

This week was the launch meeting for the US Ocean Decade, and I was asked to present our Ocean Shot in a poster and a plenary presentation. Aside from delivering my own presentation, I had the opportunity to listen to other Ocean Shots, and there was a very strong theme of integrative, sustained observing approaches among many of the proposals. I look forward to seeing the US develop a comprehensive strategy for ocean science over the next decade, and I was honored to take part in the launch.