SOCIB in the 2nd EuroSea Annual Meeting and General Assembly

SOCIB has actively participated in the 2nd EuroSea Annual Meeting on 18-22 January 2021 and in the EuroSea General Assembly on 22 January, both virtual. Over the week, the EuroSea community has discussed progress in the first 14 months of the project and has strengthened connections and synergies across EuroSea’s 55 partners. This virtual event has included the presentations of the progress of the EuroSea Working Groups, as well as presentations and discussions on best practicesstakeholder engagementimpact monitoring protocol and tracking, the gender and diversity board, and potential collaborative projects. Also, a series of scientific lunches have been dedicated to sharing a variety of project-related topics.

SOCIB is intensively involved in six of the nine work packages: WP1 on Ocean Best Practices, WP2 and WP4 on Ocean forecasting and Data assimilation, WP3 on HF Radar and Ocean Integration, WP6 on Ocean Health, and WP8 on Communication.

Main achievements

The main achievements of WP1 “Governance and coordination of ocean observing and forecasting systems” during the first year have been the organization of a Workshop on Ocean Best Practices that was attended by nearly 500 ocean experts, and the organization of the first European Ocean Observing System (EOOS) Operations committee meeting. Besides, a draft version of a dashboard for observing system monitoring has been released. Furthermore, an Action Plan for establishing global coordination of an Integrated Marine Debris Observing System has been developed, and the map of biological marine observing networks has been established.

The work developed within the WP2 “Ocean Observing System Design”, has been presented by the different task leaders. Task 2.3, in which SOCIB is involved, was further described by Bàrbara Barceló, from the Mediterranean Institute for Advanced Studies IMEDEA (CSIC-UIB), during the scientific lunch. In this task, different Observing System Simulation Experiments (OSSEs) will be performed in order to optimize the sampling strategy for the calibration phase of the SWOT satellite, which will be launched by NASA and CNES in 2022.

In relation to the WP3 “Network Integration and Improvements”, SOCIB is participating in Task 3.6 concerning the HF Radar network, and Task 3.9 aims at developing a strategic European vision of ocean integration. The main achievements of the first year have been the organization of 2 meetings on HF Radar coordination and 2 other meetings for HF Radar Governance. Concerning ocean integration, an intensive literature review has been undertaken to identify the different aspects and issues that should be addressed, and a summary has been made to be shared with all WP3 participants to collectively propose a European vision on ocean integration.

Regarding the WP4 “Data Integration, Assimilation and Forecasting”, SOCIB has contributed showing the last experiments which include the data assimilation of autonomous underwater vehicles (gliders) observations, which gather temperature and salinity profiles, used to improve the ocean circulation models forecasting.

In WP6 “Ocean Health Demonstrator”, SOCIB is involved in the integration of operational oceanography data for fisheries and has contributed to the enhancement of a web-based tool for oceanographic data exploration and visualization: the “Mediterranean Surface Exploration Tool”, that allows characterization of extreme events and exploration of various Essential Ocean Variables providing information on the sea surface of the Western Mediterranean Sea.

The progress of WP8 “Communication: Engagement, Dissemination, Exploitation, and Legacy”, and its most important key outputs and impacts, has been presented by most WP8 members, highlighting: EuroSea key messages, stakeholder engagement and exploitation strategies, H2020 Booster, project dissemination, and plans for 2021. SOCIB is co-leading Task 8.2. Dissemination and during the meeting, Verónica Ortiz, Communications Officer at SOCIB, has presented the main actions undertaken to deliver professional outreach activities to profile the EuroSea project to policymakers, industry, and science users, as well as the general public through media dissemination, including: main contributions of the EuroSea website and Social media channels, the EuroSea video, and the project identity.

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