Search

This paper explores the uptake processes that different communities use with regards to their standard operating procedures and best practices Across our five case studies, we noted what made uptake processes successful or challenging and distilled a set of recommendations to further develop the OBPS’s approach to supporting communities in developing and converging methods into best practices.

© The Author(s), 2021. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Phillips, H. E., Tandon, A., Furue, R., Hood, R., Ummenhofer, C. C., Benthuysen, J. A., Menezes, V., Hu, S., Webber, B., Sanchez-Franks, A., Cherian, D., Shroyer, E., Feng, M., Wijesekera, H., Chatterjee, A., Yu, L., Hermes, J., Murtugudde, R., Tozuka, T., Su, D., Singh, A., Centurioni, L., Prakash, S., Wiggert, J. Progress in understanding of Indian Ocean circulation, variability, air-sea exchange, and impacts on biogeochemistry. Ocean Science, 17(6), (2021): 1677–1751, https://doi.org/10.5194/os-17-1677-2021., Over the past decade, our understanding of the Indian Ocean has advanced through concerted efforts toward measuring the ocean circulation and air–sea exchanges, detecting changes in water masses, and linking physical processes to ecologically important variables. New circulation pathways and mechanisms have been discovered that control atmospheric and oceanic mean state and variability. This review brings together new understanding of the ocean–atmosphere system in the Indian Ocean since the last comprehensive review, describing the Indian Ocean circulation patterns, air–sea interactions, and climate variability. Coordinated international focus on the Indian Ocean has motivated the application of new technologies to deliver higher-resolution observations and models of Indian Ocean processes. As a result we are discovering the importance of small-scale processes in setting the large-scale gradients and circulation, interactions between physical and biogeochemical processes, interactions between boundary currents and the interior, and interactions between the surface and the deep ocean. A newly discovered regional climate mode in the southeast Indian Ocean, the Ningaloo Niño, has instigated more regional air–sea coupling and marine heatwave research in the global oceans. In the last decade, we have seen rapid warming of the Indian Ocean overlaid with extremes in the form of marine heatwaves. These events have motivated studies that have delivered new insight into the variability in ocean heat content and exchanges in the Indian Ocean and have highlighted the critical role of the Indian Ocean as a clearing house for anthropogenic heat. This synthesis paper reviews the advances in these areas in the last decade., Helen E. Phillips acknowledges support from the Earth Systems and Climate Change Hub and Climate Systems Hub of the Australian Government's National Environmental Science Programme and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes. Amit Tandon acknowledges the US Office of Naval Research. This is INCOIS contribution no. 437.

The UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (Ocean Decade) challenges marine science to better inform and stimulate social and economic development while conserving marine ecosystems. To achieve these objectives, we must make our diverse methodologies more comparable and interoperable, expanding global participation and foster capacity development in ocean science through a new and coherent approach to best practice development. We present perspectives on this issue gleaned from the ongoing development of the UNESCO Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) Ocean Best Practices System (OBPS). The OBPS is collaborating with individuals and programs around the world to transform the way ocean methodologies are managed, in strong alignment with the outcomes envisioned for the Ocean Decade. However, significant challenges remain, including: (1) the haphazard management of methodologies across their lifecycle, (2) the ambiguous endorsement of what is “best” and when and where one method may be applicable vs. another, and (3) the inconsistent access to methodological knowledge across disciplines and cultures. To help address these challenges, we recommend that sponsors and leaders in ocean science and education promote consistent documentation and convergence of methodologies to: create and improve context-dependent best practices; incorporate contextualized best practices into Ocean Decade Actions; clarify who endorses which method and why; create a global network of complementary ocean practices systems; and ensure broader consistency and flexibility in international capacity development.

Over the past decade, our understanding of the Indian Ocean has advanced through concerted efforts toward measuring the ocean circulation and its water properties, detecting changes in water masses, and linking physical processes to ecologically important variables. New circulation pathways and mechanisms have been discovered, which control atmospheric and oceanic mean state and variability. This review brings together new understanding of the ocean-atmosphere system in the Indian Ocean since the last comprehensive review, describing the Indian Ocean circulation patterns, air-sea interactions and climate variability. The second International Indian Ocean Expedition (IIOE-2) and related efforts have motivated the application of new technologies to deliver higher-resolution observations and models of Indian Ocean processes. As a result we are discovering the importance of small scale processes in setting the large-scale gradients and circulation, interactions between physical and biogeochemical processes, interactions between boundary currents and the interior, and between the surface and the deep ocean. In the last decade we have seen rapid warming of the Indian Ocean overlaid with extremes in the form of marine heatwaves. These events have motivated studies that have delivered new insight into the variability in ocean heat content and exchanges in the Indian Ocean, and climate variability on interannual to decadal timescales.This synthesis paper reviews the advances in these areas in the last decade.

Ocean experts are engaged in a long-term effort to envision, develop, and implement best practices for meeting today’s needs while preserving ocean resources for future generations

The WMO-IOC Joint Technical Commission for Oceanography and Marine Meteorology (JCOMM) has devised a coordination mechanism for the fit-for-purpose delivery of an end-to-end system, from ocean observations to met-ocean operational services. This paper offers a complete overview of the activities carried out by JCOMM and the status of the achievements up to 2018. The JCOMM stakeholders consist of the research and operational institutions of WMO members and the IOC member states, which mandated JCOMM to devise an international strategy to move toward the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The three areas of activity are the Observation Program Area (OPA), the Data Management Program Area (DMPA) and the Services and Forecasting Services Program Area (SFSPA), and several expert teams have been established to contribute to the international coordination efforts. OPA is organized into observing networks connected by different observing technologies, DMPA organizes the overall near-real time and delayed mode data assembly, and the delivery methodology and architecture, and the SFSPA coordinates the met-ocean services resulting from the observations and data management. Future developments should enhance coordination in these three program areas by considering the inclusion of new and emergent observing technologies, the interoperability of met-ocean data assembly centers and the establishment of efficient research to operations protocols, in addition to better fit-for-purpose customized services in both the public and private sectors.

The oceans play a key role in global issues such as climate change, food security, and human health. Given their vast dimensions and internal complexity, efficient monitoring and predicting of the planet's ocean must be a collaborative effort of both regional and global scale. A first and foremost requirement for such collaborative ocean observing is the need to follow well-defined and reproducible methods across activities: from strategies for structuring observing systems, sensor deployment and usage, and the generation of data and information products, to ethical and governance aspects when executing ocean observing. To meet the urgent, planet-wide challenges we face, methods across all aspects of ocean observing should be broadly adopted by the ocean community and, where appropriate, should evolve into "Ocean Best Practices." While many groups have created best practices, they are scattered across the Web or buried in local repositories and many have yet to be digitized. To reduce this fragmentation, we introduce a new open access, permanent, digital repository of best practices documentation (oceanbestpractices.org ) that is part of the Ocean Best Practices System (OBPS). The new OBPS provides an opportunity space for the centralized and coordinated improvement of ocean observing methods. The OBPS repository employs user-friendly software to significantly improve discovery and access to methods. The software includes advanced semantic technologies for search capabilities to enhance repository operations. In addition to the repository, the OBPS also includes a peer reviewed journal research topic, a forum for community discussion and a training activity for use of best practices. Together, these components serve to realize a core objective of the OBPS, which is to enable the ocean community to create superior methods for every activity in ocean observing from research to operations to applications that are agreed upon and broadly adopted across communities. Usin

Climate change and sustainable use of natural capital demand increased collaboration across the sciences. The first steps for effective collaboration often focus on improving interoperability between observation and analyses methodologies. This is traditionally done through a combination of standards and best practices. The ocean observation community and observing infrastructures - with regionally diverse members working in physics, chemistry, biology and engineering - is looking toward a dynamic consensus-building approach to match the rapid pace of technological evolution. This is an essential part of the long-term cooperation among ocean observing infrastructures. In the last 12 months, the ocean observing community has implemented an Ocean Best Practices System (OBPS). This System was recently adopted by the Intergovernmental Ocean Commission as an international project under GOOS and IODE. The System consists of a permanent OBPS repository hosted by IODE with state-of-the-art semantic discovery and metadata indexing for improved access to best practices and, eventually, to the data associated with them. There have been discussions to understand how to deal with differing best practices and standards on the same observation or analyses objective and other issues that arise from a comprehensive ocean best practices system. A recent survey, to be described, offers options on alternative approaches. Further, we have created a forum, in “Frontiers in Marine Science” for discussion of best practices and their applications. This presentation will cover options for evolving and sustaining ocean best practices across infrastructures. The recommendations build upon the community survey, the OGC experience, the outcomes of the OceanObs’19 conference as well as inputs from the Decade for Ocean Sciences community meetings. The extension of this work to other communities will also be examined.

© The Author(s), 2019. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Hermes, J. C., Masumoto, Y., Beal, L. M., Roxy, M. K., Vialard, J., Andres, M., Annamalai, H., Behera, S., D'Adamo, N., Doi, T., Peng, M., Han, W., Hardman-Mountford, N., Hendon, H., Hood, R., Kido, S., Lee, C., Lees, T., Lengaigne, M., Li, J., Lumpkin, R., Navaneeth, K. N., Milligan, B., McPhaden, M. J., Ravichandran, M., Shinoda, T., Singh, A., Sloyan, B., Strutton, P. G., Subramanian, A. C., Thurston, S., Tozuka, T., Ummenhofer, C. C., Unnikrishnan, A. S., Venkatesan, R., Wang, D., Wiggert, J., Yu, L., & Yu, W. (2019). A sustained ocean observing system in the Indian Ocean for climate related scientific knowledge and societal needs. Frontiers in Marine Science, 6, (2019): 355, doi: 10.3389/fmars.2019.00355., The Indian Ocean is warming faster than any of the global oceans and its climate is uniquely driven by the presence of a landmass at low latitudes, which causes monsoonal winds and reversing currents. The food, water, and energy security in the Indian Ocean rim countries and islands are intrinsically tied to its climate, with marine environmental goods and services, as well as trade within the basin, underpinning their economies. Hence, there are a range of societal needs for Indian Ocean observation arising from the influence of regional phenomena and climate change on, for instance, marine ecosystems, monsoon rains, and sea-level. The Indian Ocean Observing System (IndOOS), is a sustained observing system that monitors basin-scale ocean-atmosphere conditions, while providing flexibility in terms of emerging technologies and scientificand societal needs, and a framework for more regional and coastal monitoring. This paper reviews the societal and scientific motivations, current status, and future directions of IndOOS, while also discussing the need for enhanced coastal, shelf, and regional observations. The challenges of sustainability and implementation are also addressed, including capacity building, best practices, and integration of resources. The utility of IndOOS ultimately depends on the identification of, and engagement with, end-users and decision-makers and on the practical accessibility and transparency of data for a range of products and for decision-making processes. Therefore we highlight current progress, issues and challenges related to end user engagement with IndOOS, as well as the needs of the data assimilation and modeling communities. Knowledge of the status of the Indian Ocean climate and ecosystems and predictability of its future, depends on a wide range of socio-economic and environmental data, a significant part of which is provided by IndOOS., This work was supported by the PMEL contribution no. 4934.

Key Points: • A regional ocean model is used to examine multidecadal shelf temperature changes on the Agulhas Bank • There are distinct shelf temperature regime changes in 1966 and 1996 • These regime shifts are caused by changes in coastal upwelling linked to large-scale wind variability The Agulhas Bank is an important area for the spawning of small pelagic fish and other species. Here, within a NEMO ocean model, we investigate changes in temperature over the Bank on multidecadal time scales. In agreement with previous observational studies, a shift to colder temperatures is found in 1997. The model also simulates an earlier shift from colder to warmer temperatures in 1966. These shifts are coastally confined and shown, using a climatologically forced model run as a control, to be driven by a north‐south migration in the large‐scale wind belts, rather than by changes in downward heat fluxes or changes in the Agulhas Current itself. The zonal wind changes on the Agulhas Bank show a significant relationship with the Southern Annular Mode, showing some promise for future predictability of cold and warm regimes on the Agulhas Bank. Thus, while the Agulhas Current has been shown in previous work to have a large impact on intra‐annual and interannual temperature variability, this work shows that multidecadal variability in temperature on the shelf is likely to be wind forced.

The Agulhas Current plays a significant role in both local and global ocean circulation and climate regulation, yet the mechanisms that determine the seasonal cycle of the current remain unclear, with discrepancies between ocean models and observations. Observations from moorings across the current and a 22 year proxy of Agulhas Current volume transport reveal that the current is over 25% stronger in austral summer than in winter. We hypothesize that winds over the Southern Indian Ocean play a critical role in determining this seasonal phasing through barotropic and first baroclinic mode adjustments and communication to the western boundary via Rossby waves. Our hypothesis is explored using single layer and one‐and‐a‐half layer models. We find that the barotropic contribution to seasonal phasing is small, with the majority of the seasonal signal deflected offshore and along the Mozambique Ridge. The summertime maximum and wintertime minimum can, however, be reproduced by a one‐and‐a‐half layer reduced gravity model in which adjustment time to wind forcing via Rossby waves is in line with observations from satellite altimetry. Additionally, near‐field winds (to the west of 35° E) are shown to have a controlling influence on the seasonal phasing, as signals from farther afield dissipate through destructive interference with overlying winds before reaching the western boundary. These results suggest a critical role for a baroclinic adjustment to near‐field winds in setting the summertime maximum in Agulhas Current transport. Plain Language Summary The Agulhas Current flows along the east coast of South Africa, transporting warm Indian Ocean water southwards, acting as a vital limb of the global ocean conveyor‐belt and influencing local rainfall and climate. This study looks at the seasonal cycle of the Agulhas Current and uses idealized models to explore how winds over the Southern Indian Ocean may influence this seasonality. The current is 25% stronger in summertime

The dynamics and seasonal variability of jet currents on the southern Benguela shelf-edge are investigated using a climatologically forced ROMS model. The jet is primarily forced by the intense horizontal gradients that exist across the southern Benguela shelf. These gradients are set up by nearshore cooling via the strongly seasonal upwelling regime and variable offshore warming by the advection of Agulhas waters. While the nearshore cooling is prevalent only during the spring and summer upwelling season, the offshore warming exists throughout the year. As a result intensified geostrophically adjusted currents exist throughout the year, particularly off the Cape Peninsula and Cape Columbine. However, the distinct shelf-edge jet features are most intense during upwelling seasons and extend, more or less continuously, from Cape Agulhas, the southern-tip of the continent, to Cape Columbine. The spring and summer jet off the Cape Peninsula reaches speeds of at least 0.7 m.s −1, bifurcates as it moves northward. The branch that continues northward over the shelf goes on to feed the offshore branch of the Cape Columbine jet (over the 500 m isobath) and to a less extent the nearshore branch (over the 200 m isobath) that is locally enhanced by upwelling processes. During winter, the CP jet is more confined to the shelf region and goes on to feed the whole outer-shelf (200-500 m) region off and beyond Cape Columbine. An ageostrophic component associated with offshore non-linearities related to Agulhas influx causes the mean manifestation of the Cape Peninsula jet to broaden slightly (60 km) compared to its 40 km-wide geostrophic core which is situated over the 350 m isobath. The ageostrophic component is related to the generation of eddies that cause the isopycnals to flatten out.

Large solitary meanders are arguably the dominant mode of variability in the Agulhas Current. Observational studies have shown that these large meanders are associated with strong upwelling velocities and affect the shelf circulation for over 100 days per year. Here 10-year time series from two ocean general circulation models are used to create a composite picture of the Agulhas Current and its interactions with the shelf circulation in meandering and nonmeandering modes. Both models show good agreement with the size, propagation speed, and frequency of observed meanders. These composite meanders are then used to examine the response of shelf waters to the onset of large meanders, with the use of model output enabling the dynamics at depth to be explored. Results show a composite mean warming of up to 3°C of depth-averaged temperature along the shelf edge associated with an intrusion of the current jet onto the shelf driven by an intensification of the flow along the leading edge of large meanders. However, this intensification of flow results in cooling of bottom waters, driving cold events at the shelf break of <10°C at 100 m. Thus, the intensification of the current jet associated with large meander events appears to drive strong up and downwelling events across the inshore front of the Agulhas Current, facilitating shelf-slope exchange.