Exploring Deep Sea Biodiversity, Seamount Ecosystems, and the Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere of the Arctic Ocean 

The scale of human activity across our planet continues to impact the health of our ocean.  Environmental stressors stemming from climate change, overfishing, plastic and chemical pollution, and resource extraction are resulting in ocean acidification, eutrophication, and biodiversity loss. 

These impacts are complex and dynamic, and changes are occurring faster than we can measure and understand them. To undertake meaningful action to change direction, and to inform the development of sustainable resource policies and conservation solutions, we need to accelerate our scientific understanding of the ocean at all scales and dimensions: from local to global impacts, from the atmosphere to the polar regions to the deep sea, and of rates of change over time.

Global Oceans is launching several internationally collaborative project initiatives that will contribute to our understanding of the planet, that are uniquely enabled by the utilization of MARV research vessels and innovative technologies. 

These include the Innerspace Deep Sea Initiative to explore and understand biodiversity and adaptation in extreme marine environments to 6,000 meters including abyssal benthic environments, hydrothermal vent systems, cold seeps, hypersaline habitats, and other extreme ecosystems; 2) The Global Seamounts Project  (GSP) to intensively survey these unique ocean biomes in greater detail than has previously been achieved, then to computationally model these ecosystems with a linked ensemble of leading ecosystem and physical models; and 3) The Atmospheric Ocean Observatory (AOO), to build and operate a newly proposed modular facility to measure coupled, high-resolution atmospheric and oceanographic data on a dedicated icebreaking vessel transiting across the Arctic Ocean. On-going AOO data will contribute to a greater capacity to accurately model atmospheric chemistry and physics, ocean-atmospheric linkage, and climate change in one of the most rapidly changing regions on the planet.

Each of these projects is currently seeking philanthropic and governmental funding; and interest from collaborating scientists and institutions for support and to join Working Groups.