Ocean Observatory Initiative News Feed

News from Ocean Observatory Initiative

1. OOIFB Focus Group Highlights the Power of the Imaging FlowCytobot

   Back in 2021, a series of community-driven Innovations Labs helped shape the scientific priorities for the relocation of the OOI Pioneer Array from the New England Shelf to the Mid-Atlantic Bight (MAB). One high-priority request that emerged was phytoplankton imaging, essential for advancing our understanding of biogeochemical cycling and ecosystem responses. To meet that need, the OOI deployed a state-of-the-art Imaging FlowCytobot (IFCB) on the Pioneer MAB Central Surface Mooring in April 2024. This oceanographic sensor merges flow cytometry and video imaging to capture high-resolution images of microscopic aquatic life (mainly phytoplankton) while also recording key properties like chlorophyll fluorescence and light scattering. After running for a full year, the instrument was recovered in April 2025, and its data are now publicly available to researchers and educators alike. Goals and Activities of the 2025 Focus Group To engage the research community with this unique data collection tool, the U.S. National Science Foundation OOI Facility Board (OOIFB) hosted a 2.5-day Focus Group from June 18–20, 2025, at the University of North Carolina Wilmington’s Center for Marine Science. The goal was to build a community of practice around the new IFCB deployment, showcasing its potential and offering hands-on opportunities for the ocean science community to engage with this cutting-edge technology. Roughly 30 participants gathered for a deep dive into all things IFCB. The event kicked off with an introduction to the technology itself and its integration with OOI infrastructure. Participants then explored real-world research applications of IFCB data, followed by tutorials on how to access, download, and work with these datasets using the IFCB dashboard interface. Attendees used Python, MATLAB, and R coding environments to visualize and analyze IFCB data, tackling a range of scenarios that revealed both the strengths and limitations of these data products. The format allowed users to compare workflows and troubleshoot in real time, promoting collective problem-solving and peer learning. Roundtable discussions between participants and OOI Program Managers helped clarify what the IFCB community needs from the data and the associated tools. From those conversations, ideas emerged for future resources like shared GitHub repositories, use-case-driven tutorials for students, and dedicated forums to continue building community momentum. Community Engagement This focus group showcases how OOI actively fosters community engagement, especially when introducing new scientific capabilities. By building meaningful “on-ramps” for users to access data, apply new methods, and contribute to shared tools, OOI is cultivating a collaborative research environment. These events bring people together across disciplines and career stages, helping to democratize access to oceanographic data. They foster shared ownership, letting researchers shape how OOI data is used and understood. By fostering a culture of open access and technical sharing, the focus group strengthened the foundation of a growing IFCB user community, one capable of advancing our understanding of marine ecosystems at the microbial level. The IFCB is a catalyst for connection, discovery, and long-term scientific collaboration. [gallery size="large" ids="36719,36720,36721,36722,36723"]

2. Ocean Observatories Initiative: Budget Information and Impacts (FY26)

   The U.S. National Science Foundation Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) coastal and blue water arrays comprise the most technologically-advanced observational networks in the oceans, with a planned 30-year operational lifespan. A decade of successful operation has resulted in hundreds of scientific publications and myriad new discoveries about our oceans and the  life that they host. In 2016, the National Science Foundation (NSF) opened the doors for outside researchers and industry to add instrumentation to the arrays, resulting in over $70M of external funding from NSF, the Office of Naval Research, NASA, Europe and tens of millions of dollars for additional field campaigns placed within the rich environmental data the arrays provide. The unique long-term and high-density data sets form the foundation for advanced data mining and generation of new AI models advancing our understanding of dynamic ocean processes. The NSF’s Fiscal Year 2026 (FY26) budget request reduces funding for OOI by 80% in its tenth year. The OOI consists of five ocean-based observatories located off the coast of North Carolina, in the Gulf of Alaska, off the coast of Greenland, the Cascadia Margin and Juan de Fuca Ridge off Oregon, and coastal Washington. Together, they deliver continuous, real-time meteorological, biological, oceanographic, and geophysical data from more than 900 instruments. This infrastructure is deployed, operated, and maintained by expert teams of researchers managing cabled, moored, and mobile systems, including underwater gliders, remotely operated vehicles (ROVs), autonomous vehicles, and a sophisticated cyberinfrastructure platform for data delivery. The scientific and research impacts of losing OOI would include:

   • Eliminating a cost-effective national facility designed and managed to deliver high-quality geological, ocean, and atmosphere data to a broad community of stakeholders.
   • Significant loss of world-class engineers and subject matter experts whose skills and knowledge will not be recoverable for years.
   • Terminating long-term time series essential for detecting atmospheric, biological, and oceanographic trends that inform policy, risk assessments, and decision-making.
   • Ceasing real-time environmental monitoring of ocean temperature, salinity, and circulation events critical to commercial fisheries; ecosystem changes and their impact on ocean biology.
   • Suspension of measurements critical to quantify process linkages in methane hydrate environments forming immense energy reservoirs and designated as essential fish habitats.
   • Removal of core data used to update and verify ocean and meteorological models forecasting weather, predicting ocean circulation, and supporting coastal planning and ecosystem management. 
   • Disruption of support for validation of NASA satellite systems (PACE, SWOT) and oceanographic characterization for Navy maritime domain awareness, research, and modeling.
   • Ending OOI’s outreach activities focused on responding to scientific and academic priorities as defined by the community.
   • Suspension of the source of critical data sets used by undergraduate and graduate programs developing the next generation of ocean scientists and engineers.

   The proposed 80% reduction within the FY26 budget not only represents the loss of $800 million supporting the next 20 years of OOI publicly available data, but also the associated funding of the marine industries and institutions that support it. The loss of OOI would have cascading effects across the research, academic, and maritime sectors: 

   • Approximately 100 professionals at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, Oregon State University, and the University of Washington support core OOI operations.
   • Roughly half of the OOI budget supports vendors, suppliers, and services in many states including Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Oregon, Washington, Montana, South Carolina, California, and Texas.
   • The potential abandonment of ~$205 million of taxpayer-funded specialized infrastructure, sensors, and vehicles 
   • OOI serves as a national test bed for technical advancements in sensors, vehicles, power generation, and communications, including collaborations with industry and other governmental agencies such as the ONR, Department of Energy and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.
   • OOI drives over 150 days of vessel operations each year on research, fishing, and commercial charter vessels from Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Virginia, North Carolina, Oregon, Washington, California, and Alaska.

   Sincerely, The OOI Operations Team For information about the observatory and the ongoing work, please visit:https://oceanobservatories.org/ For further information or questions, please contact OOI using one of the following methods: https://oceanobservatories.org/contact-us/ orooiprogram@whoi.edu Disclaimer: Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. National Science Foundation.

3. CC-CREW Students Tour OOI’s LOSOS Facility at WHOI

   Last week, OOI hosted a group of students from the Community College Comprehensive Research Experience at WHOI (CC-CREW) for a tour of the Lab for Ocean Sensors and Observing Systems (LOSOS). The visit provided students with an up-close look at OOI equipment, including oceanographic sensors and mooring components, and included discussions about career paths in ocean science and technology. CC-CREW is a 9-week paid summer program designed to introduce local community college students to STEM pathways (particularly in ocean science and geoscience) through immersive research experiences and facility tours at WHOI. The program also supports students in planning their transition from community college to four-year institutions and how to navigate educational opportunities that lead to careers in STEM and related fields. Originally created to broaden participation in the geosciences, CC-CREW also serves a critical role in strengthening the local workforce. Many students in the program are passionate about pursuing careers that keep them rooted in the region, and tours like this one at OOI highlight the kinds of impactful, local career paths available in marine science and engineering. [caption id="attachment_36707" align="alignnone" width="640"] WHOI Principal Engineer Sheri White (center) describes the design and purpose of the instrumented surface buoys (background) used in the OOI Program. Photo courtesy of CC-CREW[/caption] [caption id="attachment_36708" align="alignnone" width="480"] WHOI Senior Engineering Assistant Diana Wickman (right) describes the capabilities of OOI ocean gliders. Photo courtesy of CC-CREW[/caption] For more information on OOI ocean gliders click here.

4. Enhancing Infrastructure Usability: Updates to the OOI Platforms and Nodes Page

   OOI has implemented a series of significant updates to its Platforms and Nodes webpage, aimed at improving sensor usage traceability, infrastructure identification, and research reproducibility. These enhancements directly support the scientific community’s need for clear, accessible metadata and a more streamline connection between OOI platforms and the data they produce. The updated Platforms and Nodes List provides a complete and structured inventory of all deployed infrastructure across the OOI’s Coastal, Global, and Cabled arrays. Each array name links to a comprehensive description of its design, geographic focus, and research themes. Individual platforms are now associated with dedicated landing pages that correspond to their official Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) which establishes a clear and citable connection between physical infrastructure and the data it generates. These platform-specific landing pages serve as centralized reference hub for each infrastructure component. They include standardized citation guidance to support accurate attribution, direct access to relevant datasets and data portals, and detailed descriptions that place each platform in scientific and operational context. Each page also features a complete list of associated instruments, with links directing users to either the OOI Data Explorer or the appropriate data access interface, facilitating efficient navigation to raw and derived data streams. These updates provide researchers with a more cohesive and transparent framework for data discovery and usage. By enabling precise cross-referencing of platforms, instruments, and datasets, the new infrastructure makes it easier to do many types of scientific research, including tracking changes over time, checking models against in situ data, studying specific ocean processes across platforms, and combining data from different platforms for more in-depth analysis. The improvements reflect OOI’s ongoing commitment to making its data and infrastructure more FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable). By reinforcing the connection between deployed equipment and accessible data products, this update enhances reproducibility and strengthens the integrity of research conducted using OOI assets. Researchers are encouraged to explore the updated Platforms and Nodes page and incorporate these resources into their data workflows, citation practices, and project planning. These tools aim to simplify the process of finding data while also enabling more detailed and meaningful research using OOI’s distributed network of ocean observing systems.

5. NSF CI Compass: OOI Data Delivery User Experience

   During a recent NSF CI Compass webinar, Jeffrey Glatstein, OOI Senior Manager of Cyberinfrastructure at WHOI, gave an inside look at how OOI has been rethinking and improving its approach to data delivery. His talk, “Data Delivery User Experience: Is it important to your facility?”, explored how the team has been working to make OOI’s massive data sets more accessible and usable for researchers and stakeholders. Jeff oversees data systems that handle real-time streams from 900 instruments spread across 80 platforms. Altogether, OOI manages over 175 billion rows of data, 2.8 petabytes of raw data, and more than 13,000 hours of video. Jeff’s team is responsible for ensuring it remains readily accessible and usable by the research community. Before the overhaul, users relied on a legacy portal called OOINET. While it provided basic functionality, it wasn’t always user-friendly. Users frequently cited long wait times, confusing interfaces, and difficulty locating specific data. These challenges sparked a full-scale effort, beginning in 2018, to improve the user experience from the ground up. The approach placed strong emphasis on the user experience. Jeff and his team conducted interviews, reviewed previous feedback, and dug into system analytics to identify areas needing improvement. They looked at a range of technical solutions before ultimately partnering with Axiom Data Science to implement a new data access platform - what we now know as the OOI Data Explorer. The webinar highlighted some of the major tech upgrades involved: Kafka for better message streaming, JupyterHub for advanced data access, Grafana for monitoring, and ERDDAP to improve data delivery. But what really set the project apart was its focus on making things easier and faster for users. Instead of relying only on on-demand plots, the new Data Explorer offers pre-generated visualizations and quicker access to datasets. Search tools were also upgraded, making it easier for users to find exactly what they’re looking for. Scientists are now able to submit more precise queries, navigate the system with greater confidence, and achieve more effective search results. Jeff noted that the team remains focused on further enhancing the interface, broadening search capabilities, and streamlining the data download process to ensure an even better user experience. Although Data Explorer has already delivered significant improvements, Jeff emphasized that OOI remains committed to continually enhancing overall functionality. These ongoing efforts reflect a broader mission: ensuring that the vast and valuable data collected from the ocean is not only accessible but also readily usable by the scientific community. [caption id="attachment_36634" align="alignnone" width="640"] Credit: Jeffrey Glatstein[/caption] [caption id="attachment_36637" align="alignnone" width="640"] Credit: Jeffrey Glatstein[/caption]