Flying the Flag for the International Indian Ocean Expedition – One Ten East log

Today is loading day in the port of Fremantle and this is the first log from the voyage. Daily logs will be posted on the WAMSI website during the month long voyage.

By Lynnath Beckley

The second International Indian Ocean Expedition (IIOE-2) is motivated by the need to advance knowledge about geological, oceanic and atmospheric processes and their interactions in the Indian Ocean because they influence millions of people around its rim. The Expedition aims to quantify how these dynamics affect climate, marine biogeochemical cycles, ecosystems and fisheries, both within the region, and globally.

At the annual IIOE-2 Steering Committee meeting in March 2019 in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, Prof. Lynnath Beckley, Chief Scientist of the upcoming RV Investigator voyage (IN2019_V03) was presented with the IIOE-2 flag.

Representing the co-sponsors, Dr Satheesh Shenoi from the Indian Ocean regional alliance of the Indian Ocean Global Ocean Observing System (IOGOOS) and Dr Peter Burkill of the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR) made the presentation and the flag will be proudly flown during the voyage.

The voyage which leaves from Fremantle on 14th May will be repeating the 110°E meridian line in the south-east Indian Ocean that was last examined in 1963 by Australian scientists aboard the HMAS Diamantina during the first IIOE. The IN2019_V03 voyage addresses several of the research themes in the IIOE-2 Science Plan, particularly those pertaining to human impacts on the Indian Ocean, boundary current dynamics, ocean circulation, climate variability and change and the unique physical, biogeochemical and ecological features of the Indian Ocean.

This research is supported by a grant of sea time on RV Investigator from the CSIRO Marine National Facility.

More information available at https://iioe-2.incois.gov.in/

 

One Ten East Logs from the IIOE-2 voyage aboard RV Investigator will be posted on the WAMSI website during the month long voyage.

Around 60 years ago, marine scientists aboard ships from 14 countries combined their efforts to explore the largest unknown area of earth, the deep waters and seabed of the Indian Ocean. This expedition generated a wealth of information and formed the basis of our scientific understanding about the Indian Ocean basin. So why do we need to do it all again?

An Australian voyage retracing part of the historic first International Indian Ocean Expedition expects to reveal the effects of climate change on the physics, chemistry and biology of the waters of the southeast Indian Ocean.

Professor Lynnath Beckley from Murdoch University is the Chief Investigator on this voyage of the second International Indian Ocean Expedition (IIOE2) which sets sail on Tuesday May 14^th from Fremantle, Western Australia.

Forty marine scientists and technicians from 18 institutions will spend 32 days at sea on the CSIRO Marine National Facility research vessel Investigator, sampling along the 110°E longitudinal meridian in the deep ocean, approximately 500-600 km offshore of the continent.

Professor Beckley said retracing the journey would provide a unique snapshot into how much the ocean and marine life had changed over time.

 

ABOVE: Chief Investigator Professor Lynnath Beckley gets ready to set sail  onboard the CSIRO Marine National Facility research vessel Investigator

 

“There is published scientific evidence that, in the past five decades, there has been surface water warming of over one degree Celsius in the south-east Indian Ocean” Professor Beckley said.

“There are also indications that the deepest, coldest waters in the ocean, those that are formed around Antarctica, are rapidly warming and freshening. These changed waters are moving towards the Indian Ocean and will have huge ramifications for global ocean circulation patterns.

“This expedition will provide some of the first ecological data about the oceanic food web in several of Australia’s recently established south-west and north-west marine parks, which extend out to the edge of Australia’s Exclusive Economic Zone.”

The researchers will investigate the whole oceanic ecosystem including physical processes, bio-geochemistry, nitrogen sources, microbes, primary production, zooplankton, mesopelagic fishes, food webs and whales.

“Essentially, our multi-disciplinary team will be investigating everything we can from physics to fish with some whales on the side!” Professor Beckley said.

“Technology has advanced significantly since the first expedition and we now have the opportunity to discover how microbes contribute to the functioning of the Indian Ocean, which was not able to be studied last time because the genomics techniques were not yet developed”.

“We will also be checking the accuracy of satellite remote sensing of ocean colour by measuring levels of chlorophyll and other pigments in the water column. This will help us evaluate production by algae and carbon sequestering on an ocean basin scale.”

A team of scientists and postgraduate students from seven Australian universities – Murdoch University, Curtin University, University of Tasmania, University of Technology Sydney, Macquarie University, University of New South Wales and University of Western Australia – will accompany Professor Beckley on the 2019 expedition. Researchers from the University of Auckland, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Spanish National Research Council, Alfred Wegener Institute, NOAA, CSIRO, Australian Institute of Marine Science, Centre for Whale Research (WA) Inc.and the Australian Department of Defence will also be conducting research on board the voyage.

The voyage is a major part of Australia’s contribution to the UNESCO-led IIOE-2 mission and Australia’s Marine National Facility.

The voyage embarked on 14 May from Fremantle and returns on 14 June. More information on the second International Indian Ocean Expedition can be found at https://iioe-2.incois.gov.in/

 

Passionate marine science and radio astronomy leader Dr Bernard Bowen was the inaugural Chair of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (a joint venture between The University of Western Australia and Curtin University) Dr Bowen is renowned for being one of the country’s finest science administrators, presiding over scientific advances ranging from the oceans to the skies in a career spanning more than half a century.

He was Western Australia’s first government marine research scientist, analysing the State’s lucrative rock lobster fishery, and spent 24 years at the helm of the Department of Fisheries (formerly the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife) until 1991. He also played a significant role in the development of the WA Marine Research Laboratories and the WA Wildlife Research Centre.

Dr Bowen then went on to become deputy chair of the WA Environmental Protection Authority from 1994-1997, and served as chair from 1997-2003.

In 2005, at the request of the WA Government, Dr Bowen guided the establishment of the Western Australian Marine Science Institution (WAMSI) and was its founding chair.

He was instrumental in the establishment of ICRAR in 2009—serving as its founding chair until 2016—and helped bring part of the Square Kilometre Array telescope to Western Australia.

ICRAR executive director Professor Peter Quinn said Dr Bowen used his knowledge and experience to support WA science for more than 60 years.

“Bernard’s many, many accomplishments are a legacy that will benefit Western Australia for generations to come.”

“He was a great friend and colleague, and ardent advocate for science. His passing is a great loss to the science community and he’ll be greatly missed by all.”

Dr Bowen was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in 1991 and was awarded an Australian Centenary Medal in 2003.

In 2011, he was inducted into the WA Science Hall of Fame, joining Fiona Stanley, Ian Constable, John de Laeter, Barry Marshall and Robin Warren.

The University of Western Australia awarded Dr Bowen an honorary Doctor of Letters in 2016, and in 2017, a minor planet was named in his honour.

This article was originally published by UWA. read the original article HERE

By : Matthew Fraser, University of Western Australia; Ana Sequeira, University of Western Australia; Brendan Paul Burns, UNSW; Diana Walker, University of Western Australia; Jon C. Day, James Cook University, and Scott Heron, James Cook University

The devastating bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef in 2016 and 2017 rightly captured the world’s attention. But what’s less widely known is that another World Heritage-listed marine ecosystem in Australia, Shark Bay, was also recently devastated by extreme temperatures, when a brutal marine heatwave struck off Western Australia in 2011.

A 2018 workshop convened by the Shark Bay World Heritage Advisory Committee classified Shark Bay as being in the highest category of vulnerability to future climate change. And yet relatively little media attention and research funding has been paid to this World Heritage Site that is on the precipice.

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Read more: Shark Bay stromatolites at risk from climate change

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Shark Bay, in WA’s Gascoyne region, is one of 49 marine World Heritage Sites globally, but one of only four of these sites that meets all four natural criteria for World Heritage listing. The marine ecosystem supports the local economy through tourism and fisheries benefits.

Around 100,000 tourists visit Shark Bay each year to interact with turtles, dugongs and dolphins, or to visit the world’s most extensive population of stromatolites – stump-shaped colonies of microbes that date back billions of years, almost to the dawn of life on Earth.

Commercial and recreational fishing is also extremely important for the local economy. The combined Shark Bay invertebrate fishery (crabs, prawns and scallops) is the second most valuable commercial fishery in Western Australia.

Under threat

However, this iconic and valuable marine ecosystem is under serious threat. Shark Bay is especially vulnerable to future climate change, given that the temperate seagrass that underpins the entire ecosystem is already living at the upper edge of its tolerable temperature range. These seagrasses provide vital habitat for fish and marine mammals, and help the stromatolites survive by regulating the water salinity.

Shark Bay received the highest rating of vulnerability using the recently developed Climate Change Vulnerability Index, created to provide a method for assessing climate change impacts across all World Heritage Sites.

In particular, extreme marine heat events were classified as very likely and predicted to have catastrophic consequences in Shark Bay. By contrast, the capacity to adapt to marine heat events was rated very low, showing the challenges Shark Bay faces in the coming decades.

The region is also threatened by increasingly frequent and intense storms, and warming air temperatures.

To understand the potential impacts of climatic change on Shark Bay, we can look back to the effects of the most recent marine heatwave in the area. In 2011 Shark Bay was hit by a catastrophic marine heatwave that destroyed 900 square kilometres of seagrass – 36% of the total coverage.

This in turn harmed endangered species such as turtles, contributed to the temporary closure of the commercial crab and scallop fisheries, and released between 2 million and 9 million tonnes of carbon dioxide – equivalent to the annual emissions from 800,000 homes.

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Read more: Climate change threatens Western Australia’s iconic Shark Bay

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Some aspects of Shark Bay’s ecosystem have never been the same since. Many areas previously covered with large, temperate seagrasses are now bare, or have been colonised by small, tropical seagrasses, which do not provide the same habitat for animals. This mirrors the transition seen on bleached coral reefs, which are taken over by turf algae. We may be witnessing the beginning of Shark Bay’s transition from a sub-tropical to a tropical marine ecosystem.

This shift would jeopardise Shark Bay’s World Heritage values. Although stromatolites have survived for almost the entire history of life on Earth, they are still vulnerable to rapid environmental change. Monitoring changes in the microbial makeup of these communities could even serve as a canary in the coalmine for global ecosystem changes.

The neglected bay?

Despite Shark Bay’s significance, and the seriousness of the threats it faces, it has received less media and funding attention than many other high-profile Australian ecosystems. Since 2011, the Australian Research Council has funded 115 research projects on the Great Barrier Reef, and just nine for Shark Bay.

Coral reefs rightly receive a lot of attention, particularly given the growing appreciation that climate change threatens the Great Barrier Reef and other corals around the world.

The World Heritage Committee has recognised that local efforts alone are no longer enough to save coral reefs, but this logic can be extended to other vulnerable marine ecosystems – including the World Heritage values of Shark Bay.

Safeguarding Shark Bay from climate change requires a coordinated research and management effort from government, local industry, academic institutions, not-for-profits and local Indigenous groups – before any irreversible ecosystem tipping points are reached. The need for such a strategic effort was obvious as long ago as the 2011 heatwave, but it hasn’t happened yet.

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Read more: Marine heatwaves are getting hotter, lasting longer and doing more damage

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Due to the significant Aboriginal heritage in Shark Bay, including three language groups (Malgana, Nhanda and Yingkarta), it will be vital to incorporate Indigenous knowledge, so as to understand the potential social impacts.

And of course, any on-the-ground actions to protect Shark Bay need to be accompanied by dramatic reductions in greenhouse emissions. Without this, Shark Bay will be one of the many marine ecosystems to fundamentally change within our lifetimes.

Matthew Fraser, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Western Australia; Ana Sequeira, ARC DECRA Fellow, University of Western Australia; Brendan Paul Burns, Senior Lecturer, UNSW; Diana Walker, Emeritus Professor, University of Western Australia; Jon C. Day, PSM, Post-career PhD candidate, ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University, and Scott Heron, Senior Lecturer, James Cook University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.