Building an International Transparent Ocean Community
Summary and Expectations
The special session is hosted by National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology (QNLM) and co-hosted by Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) and Center for Southern Hemisphere Oceans Research (CSHOR). One of the “societal outcomes” of the UN Decade of Ocean Sciences is “transparent and accessible ocean” through observations, understanding and modelling, leading to a “predicted ocean”, whereby all nations, stakeholders and citizens have access to ocean data and information, technologies, and have the capacities to inform their decisions. This session focuses on how we may best build a global “transparent ocean” community by entraining contribution from more nations to innovation of observing technologies, to building a cost-effective global observing system, and to data-sharing. Another focus of the session is on whether there is need for “between-decadal” conferences in the era of artificial intelligence and deep machine learning, to respond in a timely fashion to scientific and societal needs arising within the UN ocean decade and beyond.
Expected Outcomes/Recommendations
- Transparent Ocean Initiative will greatly contribute to the UN Decade of Ocean Sciences for Sustainable Development by providing vital information relevant to the development goals.
- It is essential to integrate observations, process studies and prediction/projection, so as to meet multiple demands of end users.
- Strengthened effort is needed to meet challenges of effective communication between science and research community and the general public.