Newsletter October 2023 | Volume 2
Welcome to EuroGO-SHIP
Welcome to Volume Two of the EuroGO-SHIP newsletter and thank you for your interest in this important Horizon Europe project.
As summer transitions into Autumn, EuroGO-SHIP has sailed through the start-up mode of the first six months into the deeper waters of the implementation phase, with the vast majority of project tasks on track to meet milestones and deliverables by the end of November, in addition to the ongoing work in support of the longer term goals across all of the EuroGO-SHIP project aims.
Pilot activities on the water have continued with two research cruises. Tools for quality control for observational data have been produced, and EuroGO-SHIP colleagues have been actively performing outreach and stakeholder engagement at various meetings and conferences, leveraging new communication materials created to support project communications. Check out who and where here.
EuroGO-SHIP team members have been inspired to share their voices and personal experiences in a series of travelogues and video interviews. Also, currently in development, are a series of comprehensive blogs to demonstrate the project’s success stories; these will start rolling out from December. Learn more here.
And a milestone was met with the First Consultation with Research Infrastructures report, a living document that will evolve through the consultation process.
As we work toward proposing a potential new functional Research Infrastructure, we are developing a deeper understanding of the needs of the European hydrographic community through direct consultations with the actual data producers, as well as discussions with the existing RIs. The results of this stakeholder engagement will help us to ensure that we properly scope and design new services as well as define the coordination plan of existing services that will be the foundation for the new structure. The experience of direct dialogue with stakeholders is also informing our ability to clarify the ultimate purpose of the new proposed RI in terms of what it can produce and how we can demonstrate its value.
We look forward to updating you again in the December Newsletter as we complete the first project year. In the meantime, please stay tuned to the EuroGO-SHIP website News Section for regular updates.
And get in touch with any feedback or questions. We are sincerely interested in hearing from you and welcome any comments.
Please write to us here.
Dr. Elaine McDonagh
EuroGO-SHIP Project Coordinator
EuroGO-SHIP Voices | Blogs and More
EuroGO-SHIP researchers are sharing their passion and adventures from the waters and shores around Europe in a series called Postcards from the Sea–an anthology of casual, personal accounts (blogs and video interviews). Tune in to get a sense of life on a cruise, to gain insights into the nuts and bolts of Ocean Observation, and to learn how these dedicated scientists are supporting each other and their research communities as well as providing important data to help society understand our environment and better manage our seas and holistic climate.
Coming Soon: EuroGO-SHIP will also launch a series of blogs as new stories emerge from the implementation of the project, demonstrating how ship-based hydrography strengthens the marine value chain. Stay tuned for the first one later this year.
Recent Postcards from the Sea Releases
Visit the Blog Section of our website for more as new stories emerging from the EuroGO-SHIP project will be regularly posted.
On the Water: EuroGO-SHIP Research Cruise Activities
10-16 July | Salinity Study in the Black Sea
EuroGO-SHIP partner GeoECOMar conducted a research cruise on the Mare Nigrum around the Romania Shelf of the Western Black Sea. During the seven-day cruise, 100 samples were collected. Half of these samples were analysed onboard using the salinometer; the other 50 were sent to NOC in the U.K to double check the results in support of Task 3.2: investigating the effect of different salinometers and lab conditions on consistency and stability of bottle salinity measurements to inform best practices for salinity analysis, nutrient sample stability and carbon secondary standards
The training and equipment loan aspects of this research cruise once again demonstrates EuroGO-SHIP’s key aim toward achieving Pan-Euro Coordination—making the EU hydrographic system stronger than the sum of its component parts to maximise the return on the collective investment.
For a personal, detailed story about the cruise, checkout Teodor Mușat’s blog Tales from Budding Oceanographer and the accompanying video.
During the first six months of the project, there have been three pilot activities performed on cruises in support of the EuroGO-SHIP objective: Concept Demonstration Best Practices and Pilot Activities. Two of the pilots were designed to directly inform a best practice for salinity analysis and one for a best practice in nutrient sample stability. Each one demonstrates one of EuroGO-SHIP’s key aims toward achieving Pan-Euro Coordination —making the EU hydrographic system stronger than the sum of its component parts to maximise the return on the collective investment.
8 June to 17 July | BOCATS2 A25-OVIDE Cruise, North Atlantic
On the 17th of July, the Spanish research vessel Sarmiento de Gamboa arrived in Reykjavik, completing the biennial re-occupation of the A25-OVIDE line for 2023, after departing from Vigo, Spain on the 8th of June. The cruise focused on the evaluation of heat, mass and carbon transports along the section of the Subpolar Gyre of the North Atlantic Ocean, and its relation with AMOC variability. A collaborative team from IIM-CSIC and LOPS-IFREMER, has been evaluating this section for years; the tasks involved were in support of EuroGO-SHIP Work Package 2.
EuroGO-SHIP Project Activities and News of Note
BOCATS2 2023 Cruise data along the A25-OVIDE section
In July, EuroGO-SHIP partners were happy to report that OVIDE CTD data was successfully transmitted in REAL TIME with a DOI and has been transmitted on the WMO GTS. See it here.
Software and Data for Primary Quality Control
In support of Deliverable 2.1 – Initial Scope of New Services and Access Opportunities for EuroGO-SHIP, a public code repository for sharing code and data has been deployed in Github and is available via this link.
Progress towards Milestone 2.1 has been made with the first release of the software for primary quality control of observational data (QC1) with installers generated for all platforms. New features and file formats were implemented, as well as performance and security updates on code and most libraries. This EuroGO-SHIP software has been used in training activities at the Ocean Best Practices VI Workshop.
It is available on Zenodo.
Velo, A., Cacabelos, J., Lange, N., Tanhua, T., Olsen, A., & Perez, F. (2023). EuroGO-SHIP AtlantOS_QC v1.5.0 (v1.5.0). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10015795
New Poster
Ship-based hydrography is a cornerstone of the marine knowledge value chain.
The newly minted EuroGO-SHIP poster puts a spotlight on the specific stakeholder groups who will benefit from the realisation of the project’s aims, while also depicting how modern oceanography relies on research vessels to capture high-quality marine data and to deploy and maintain diverse Ocean observing instruments.
Customised versions of the posters have been created and it is already slated to appear at several events through the end of the year.
Milestone Met for First Consultation with RIs Report
Progress on the ongoing conversations with existing Research Infrastructures serving the European hydrographic community has been outlined in a ‘living’ summary document, which will continue to evolve and will form part of Deliverable 5.1 – Report Summarizing the RI requirements for potential help of the proposed EuroGO-SHIP RI.
Existing RI’s have developed a distinct set of services for their members, including data centres, calibration laboratories, model platforms and observing infrastructure elements. The aim for EuroGO-SHIP is to assess these capabilities and propose a structure that fills in relevant gaps with new services where they do not exist elsewhere, so as to ensure a significant value to add to the existing RI landscape.
To date stakeholder engagement has taken place with Eurofleets+, GroomII, EURO ARGO ERIC, ICOS ERIC and EMSO ERIC through one-on-one interviews. These meetings have yielded excellent results with an overall positive response to the EuroGO-SHIP concept and many mutual services identified, as well as synergistic areas for exploitation and collaboration.
EuroGO-SHIP Outreach Activities
EuroGO-SHIP team members have been spreading awareness about the project at conferences, meetings and events through the hot summer days and into the busy autumn weeks.
In July, Katrin Schroeder waved the EuroGO-SHIP flag while at the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG) 23rd annual conference held the 11-20 of July in Germany where she distributed flyers and performed outreach during the oceanographic sessions.
Johannes Karstensen of GEOMAR put a spotlight on the data quality control aims of the EuroGO-SHIP project during a presentation to the European ocean observer, modeller, and user community at the final Eurosea Project General Assembly at IOC Unesco in Paris, France on the 21st of September.
At the 10th annual EuroGOOS Conference in Galway, Ireland on the 4th of October, Richard Sanders of NORCE gave a presentation outlining EuroGO-SHIP’s proposal to build a new research infrastructure in support of European hydrography, and discussed that while hydrography is one of the oldest ways to observe the ocean, it is still one of the most reliable.
The EuroGO-SHIP poster premiered at the EurOcean Conference in Spain, 10-11 of October. Marta Álvarez of IEO-CSIC and Katrin Schroeder CNR performed outreach activities to the European marine science and science policy communities.
Martin Kramp of OceanOPS, WMO presented the poster at the 34th Annual International Research Ship Operators (IRSO) meeting, held 16-20 of October, at the UNESCO world heritage site City of Bruges, and was on point to discuss the EuroGO-SHIP project and its aims with a community of more than 120 delegates from around the world.
Nov 2023
MonGOOS General Assembly and Workshop, Morocco
Nov 29-30
EMODnet Open Conference, Brussels, Belgium
(The EuroGO-SHIP Poster will be on display)
Jan 2024
Enhancing Ocean Observations – EuroGO-SHIP Webinar
APP for QC of carbon system parameter
Apr 10, 2024
2024 Ocean Decade Conference
Barcelona International Convention Centre
June 2024
2nd EuroGO-SHIP Annual Meeting
will be hosted by CNR in Venice, Italy