Category Archives: NOAA

NOAA launches marine planning site

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A new Web site from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) gives visitors tools to learn about marine spatial planning – the ocean equivalent of land-use planning.

The site, at www.msp.noaa.gov, not only lays out basic concepts, but helps visitors  stay on top of current  news and information about marine spatial planning initiatives in the U.S., at both the federal and state levels.

The site also provides access to the tools and data used by organizations involved in marine spatial planning, including mapping and modeling tools, downloadable software and direct access to relevant government databases.

The site’s “In Practice” section profiles a number of state and regional projects involving marine spatial planning, including current Oregon efforts to plan for offshore wave energy projects.

National Sea Grant office seeks science officer

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NOAA’s National Sea Grant College Program is advertising for a Social Scientist/Program Officer to work in the Silver Spring, MD, headquarters office. The position will serve as both a Program Officer and the National Sea Grant Social Science Specialist. The application deadline is Nov. 30.

The National Sea Grant College Program is NOAA’s primary university-based program in support of coastal resource use and conservation.  The national office oversees 32 university-based Sea Grant programs that work locally and regionally to conduct  scientific research, education, training, and outreach projects designed to foster science-based decisions about the use and conservation of our aquatic resources.

Read more …

Pacific tsunami highlights need to prepare

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The tsunami that struck American Samoa this week – and prompted a brief warning on the Oregon coast – illustrates the need for coastal tsunami preparedness, and how far most of the tsunami-prone world has to go toward developing an effective warning and response system.

This CBS News report on the science of tsunamis includes a good animation of how tsunamis occur, along with commentary by Dawn Wright, Oregon State University geosciences professor. National Public Radio, meanwhile, reported on progress toward preparedness in the seismically active Pacific Rim since the devastating tsunami that struck Indonesia in 2004. “The biggest challenge … remains keeping people aware and knowledgeble about this hazard so that they strike, people do the right thing, ” said Charles McCreery, director of NOAA’s Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii.

In Oregon, Sea Grant’s Pat Corcoran is among those working to make coastal communities and their residents aware of what to do should a tsunami strike our coast:

For more information about tsunamis and preparedness, watch the Oregon Sea Grant video “Reaching Higher Ground.”

NOAA highlights Oregon Sea Grant’s work on climate change communications

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It is a common belief that if coastal resource managers and other communicators could just provide the public with information, people would take appropriate actions. But social scientists conducting research for the past 50 years have found this assumption riddled with misconceptions and are shedding light on how communications and outreach can more effectively influence behavior.

—”Helping Managers Communicate Climate Change in Oregon,” Coastal Services magazine, September/October 2009

Among those who are “shedding light on how communications and outreach can more effectively influence behavior,” particularly with regard to climate change, is Joe Cone, assistant director of Oregon Sea Grant. Cone believes that “understanding more about how social science relates to climate science will help us all do our work better and help communities prepare.”

In addition to the Coastal Services article, Cone’s work in this field is featured in several Oregon Sea Grant publications and podcasts.

Sea Grant, NOAA offer teacher workshop

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NOAA-OEScience teachers in grades 6-12 are invited to take part in the first of a two-part professional development workshop series based on NOAA’s “Learning Ocean Science through Ocean Exploration” curriculum.

The workshop, presented by NOAA and Oregon Sea Grant, will run from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 7, at OSU’s Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport.

This workshop prepares teachers to bring the excitement of current ocean science discoveries to students using the Learning Ocean Science through Ocean Exploration curriculum, CD, and the Ocean Explorer Web site.

The second workshop will be held in spring 2010. Educators who attend both full-day workshops will receive a $100 stipend. Advance registration is required and space is limited. The registration deadline is Oct. 23.

Download registration materials here.

NOAA to move research ships to Newport

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RV Bell M. Shimada

RV Bell M. Shimada

NEWPORT – The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced this morning that Newport will be the home of the agency’s Marine Operations Center-Pacific beginning in 2011.

The federal agency chose Newport over bids from Seattle – where four of NOAA’s 10 Pacific research vessels are now based – as well as Bellingham and Port Angeles, WA. The deal awaits signing of a 20-year lease with the Port of Newport.

“This is huge,” Ginny Goblirsch, Port of Newport commissioner and Sea Grant Extension agent emeritus, told the Oregonian. “It means everything. It’s like $400 million over the next 20 years to the community and state. ”

The move is expected bring to Newport approximately 175 NOAA employees, including more than 110 officers and crew assigned to the NOAA ships McArthur II, Miller Freeman, Rainier and Bell M. Shimada, a new fisheries survey vessel expected to join the research fleet in 2010.

The agency went through an extensive public process before deciding where to locate the facility. According to an agency press release, considerations in site selection included NOAA’s infrastructure needs, proximity to maritime industry resources and NOAA labs, quality of life for employees, the ability to meet the desired occupancy date of July 2011, when the agency’s Seattle lease expires.

The federal agency’s vessels are used to conduct research and gather data about the world’s oceans and atmosphere. Newport and OSU’s Hatfield Marine Science Center are already home to NOAA’s VENTS program, which conducts research on the impacts and consequences of submarine volcanoes and hydrothermal venting on the global ocean.

(NOAA is the parent agency of Sea Grant programs in Oregon, Washington and other coastal and Great Lakes states.)

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West Coast research needs report is online

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The efforts of three years and  people in three states have culminated in the release this week of a new report detailing the major regional marine research and information needs of Oregon, Washington and California.

West Coast Regional Marine Research and Information Needs, produced by the four Sea Grant programs in the three West Coast states, grew out of three years public meetings, surveys and analysis. More than 1,000 stakeholders, representing community, business, research and agency interests, took part in identifying those needs.

Sea Grant collaborators analyzed thousands of stakeholder comments and sorted the needs into eight categories:

  • Vitality of Coastal Communities and Maritime Operations
  • Ocean and Coastal Governance and Management of Multiple Uses
  • Fisheries and Aquaculture
  • Marine Ecosystem Structure and Function
  • Ocean Health and Stressors
  • Physical Ocean Processes, Related Climate Change, and Physical Coastal Hazards
  • Water Quality and Pollution
  • Resilience and Adaptability to Hazards and Climate Change

Cutting across those topics are three themes:  climate change, marine education and literacy, and access to information and data.

The project, funded by NOAA as part of a nationwide effort to identify and set priorities for future research, is closely aligned with the West Coast Governors’ Agreement on Ocean Health.

Read more and download a copy of the report …

New federal climate change report available online

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NOAA Climate Change coverA new report from the nation’s top science agencies, “Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States,” is available in full and in summary from the US Global Change Research Program Web site.

The report, released yesterday by presidential science advisor John Holdren and NOAA director Jane Lubchenco, represents an unprecedented multi-agency summary of the science and the impacts of climate change on the United States, now and in the future. It focuses on climate change impacts in different regions of the U.S. – including the Pacific Northwest – and on various aspects of society and the economy.

“This report demonstrates that climate change is happening now, in our own backyard, and it affects the things that people care about,” Lubchenco said.

A printable .pdf fact sheet summarizes what the Northwest can expect from changing climate, including rising sea levels, further stresses on salmon and other coldwater fish, and reduced water supplies due to declining winter snow packs.

For more information about the scientific and cultural challenges posed by a changing climate, visit Oregon Sea Grant’s Climate Change page.