Australia is a ‘marine nation’ – an island continent with the third largest ocean territory on the ‘Blue Planet’. Our borders are maritime and we generate massive wealth from marine industries. Most of our population lives in highly urbanised centres on or near the coast, and we are extremely sensitive to ocean-influenced climate and weather, through drought, flood, and tropical cyclones. Our ocean territory contains marine biodiversity of globally significant conservation and tourism value, ranging from the high tropics to Antarctica. These factors combine to establish the need for sustained ocean observing in the Australian context, for many uses and users. Despite this clear, national need, responsibility for ocean observing and management is fragmented and dispersed. A National Oceans Policy and independent National Oceans Office were established in 1998, but were subsumed into the Federal Environment portfolio by 2005. The Bureau of Meteorology is Australia's national weather agency, and while its role has expanded to encompass climate and water services over the last decade, it is only now beginning to consider an expanded role in marine services. Jurisdiction of the marine environment, including responsibility for marine monitoring, is shared across Federal, State and Territory Governments, across different Departments within those various Governments, and between industrial users and regulators in areas like offshore oil and gas and commercial fishing. It is also significant to note that Australia has no earth observation from space (EOS) capability of its own. Since 2006, Australia has put in place a national Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS). Established as a research infrastructure, IMOS routinely operates a wide range of observing equipment, making all of its data openly accessible to the marine and climate science community, other stakeholders and users, and international collaborators. It is integrated from open-ocean to coast, and across physical, chemical and biological ocean variables. This talk will focus on what has been learnt through the experience of building IMOS as a research infrastructure in a context where sustained ocean observations are needed by many users.

1. Sustained observations for many uses
- perspectives from Australia’s Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS)
Tim Moltmann, IMOS Director
GEO Blue Planet, Cairns 27 May 2015

2. Australia as a marine nation
on the blue planet…
• Systematic and sustained observing of the marine environment
• Turning observations into data – real time, time series
• International collaboration, Australian role in a global effort

3. Australia as a marine nation – some history…
• 1998 - Australia’s Oceans Policy
– National Oceans Office, Ministerial Board…
• 1999 – Marine Science & Technology Plan
• then ~!@#$%^&*()_+
• 2005 - R.I.P. National Oceans Office
• 2005 - OPSAG ‘AusIOOS Working Group’
• 2006 - National Collaborative Research
Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) funded
– Integrated Marine Observing System
(IMOS) one of 16 priorities ($50M/5 yrs)
• 2009 - IMOS phase II, grew by 80% ($52M)
• 2015 - IMOS phase III-V, (+$40M = $142M)
– first decade secure, planning the second
• Requirements
• EOV’s
• Readiness

4. What is IMOS, and how does it work?

5. What is IMOS?
• IMOS is a
– national
– collaborative
– research infrastructure
– funded by Australian Government
• It provides the means for multiple institutions to
undertake systematic and sustained observing of
the marine environment
• Making all of the data openly available for research
and other purposes

6. How does IMOS work? – Science
Nodes
One national plan, six Node ‘chapters’
focused on the open ocean and
regional marine systems
Why are we doing this?
What do we need to observe,
where, when and how?
29 EOVs

7. How does IMOS work? - Facilities
1. Argo Floats
2. Ships of Opportunity
3. Deepwater Moorings
4. Ocean Glider Fleet
5. Autonomous Underwater
Vehicles
6. National Mooring Network
7. Ocean Radar Network
8. Animal Tagging and
Monitoring Network
9. Wireless Sensor Network
10. Satellite Remote Sensing
C1.08D
Pattiaratchi
et al
C2.04
Streckenreuter
et al
C5.08A
Beggs et al
C4.08A
Bainbridge
et al
Argo
XBT
OceanSITES
GOA-ON
Global HFR

8. IMOS Facilities, International Programs
1. Argo Floats
2. Ships of Opportunity
3. Deepwater Moorings
4. Ocean Glider Fleet
5. Autonomous Underwater
Vehicles
6. National Mooring
Network
7. Ocean Radar Network
8. Animal Tagging and
Monitoring Network
9. Wireless Sensor Network
10. Satellite Remote Sensing

9. IMOS Capability
– integrated across scales

10. IMOS Capability
– integrated across disciplines

11. How does IMOS work? – Data
- all data discoverable, accessible, usable and reusable
C7.04
Proctor
et al

12. Status of data holdings
http://imos.org.au/imosdatareports.html
• Argo Australia
– 93,233,223 measurements
• SOOP
– 202,163,622 measurements
• Deepwater moorings
– 2,042 QC’d data files
• Glider
– 26 platforms, 165 deployments
• AUV
– 3,644,146 images
• Shelf/coastal moorings
– 54 sites, 4,939 QC’d data files
– noise loggers, OA moorings
• Radar
– 3,895,899 files (radials)
• Animal tagging (satellite)
– 213,275 CTD profiles
• Animal tagging, acoustic
– 60,785,805 detections
• GBR sensor network
– 7 sites, 290 sensors
• SST
• Ocean Colour
• Altimetry (daily GMSLA)
http://oceancurrent.imos.org.au/

13. How does IMOS work? – Adding value to
Data
• OceanCurrent
– http://oceancurrent.imos.org.au/
• Daily maps
– Surface currents
– Temperature
– Ocean Colour
• ‘Super user’ of the IMOS
data streams
• Making ocean data available
to a wider audience
C6.07B
Griffin et al

14. Uptake and use of IMOS
‘Publications’ Database

15. Relevance and impact of IMOS
• Operated by a small number of institutions
• Used by all (science plans, open access)
• To generate a wide range of outputs
• Relevant across government, industry,
society

16. Sustained observations for many uses
- perspectives from the IMOS experience

17. Sustained observations for many uses
- perspectives from the IMOS experience
• In 2005 we wanted Aus-IOOS
• We managed to get IMOS
• We’ve made IMOS work
– as a obs research infrastructure
• We’ve held on to the Aus-IOOS vision
– through OPSAG/NMSC
• And we’ve learnt some things along the way
1. Defining requirements
2. Data availability
3. Thinking holistically
4. Assessing readiness
IOOS Vision
An IOOS is envisaged as a national and international system,
which systematically acquires and delivers marine products to
monitor and forecast the state of the ocean environment, to meet
the needs of user groups, including policy makers, government
agencies, industries, scientists, educators and the community. The
system must be:
•End-to-end, incorporating subsystems for data acquisition, data
communication and management, and data analysis, modelling and
product generation.
•Responsive to user needs and able to deliver useful products in a
reliable and timely manner.
•Deliver cost-effectiveness by serving multiple applications with
individual products, providing multiple products from individual data
streams, and maintaining multiple sensors and data streams on
individual platforms.
National Marine
Science Plan
(launched
August 2015)

18. 1. Defining requirements
?
Observing for Research vs Operations…
Sustained Observing for Research and Operations
(and Experimental Observing)

19. 2. Data availability
• Make the goddamned data available!
– Yes biologists, we mean you too…
• It’s not about ‘a portal’: its about data quality,
standards, vocabularies, services…
• This is a key point
• Data can’t be put to many uses for societal benefit if it
is simply unavailable…

20. AODN
IMOS + other
marine data
Coastal
and ocean
modelling
Satellite
Remote
Sensing
Research
Vessels
IMOS
• National collaborative
research infrastructure
• For sustained observing
of the marine
environment
• Integrated from open
ocean to coast
• Integrated across
physics, chemistry and
biology
IMOS
information
infrastructure
Designed through national science planning developed by regional science Nodes
Implemented through national, multi-institutional Facilities, with all data shared
Australian
Ocean Data
Network
Marine data that
is discoverable,
accessible,
usable, and
reusable
Model Development,
Model Validation,
Data Assimilation,
Observing System Design
A ‘virtual fleet’
Calibration & validation,
national product suite
3. Thinking holistically
Australian
National Shelf
Reanalysis

21. 4. Assessing readiness
Funding of
sustained
observing for
research and
operations…
Bio-Argo
Deep Argo
Biological observing at all trophic levels ($27M)…
Gliders,
Radar
Argo
SOOP
Moorings
?

22. Thank you

23. IMOS is a national research infrastructure, supported by Australian Governme
It is led by University of Tasmania in partnership with the Australian marine
and climate science community.
The Operators of the IMOS infrastructure are:
www.imos.org.au