Oceanography, also known as oceanology, sea science and ocean science, is the scientific study of the oceans. It is an Earth science, which covers a wide range of topics, including ecosystem dynamics; ocean currents, waves, and geophysical fluid dynamics; plate tectonics and seabed geology; and fluxes of various chemical substances and physical properties within the ocean and across its boundaries. These diverse topics reflect multiple disciplines that oceanographers utilize to glean further knowledge of the world ocean, including astronomy, biology, chemistry, climatology, geography, geology, hydrology, meteorology and physics. Paleoceanography studies the history of the oceans in the geologic past. An oceanographer is a person who studies many matters concerned with oceans, including marine geology, physics, chemistry and biology.
The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is a private, nonprofit research and higher education facility dedicated to the study of marine science and engineering.
The Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO (IOC/UNESCO) was established by resolution 2.31 adopted by the General Conference of UNESCO. It first met in Paris at Unesco Headquarters from 19 to 27 October 1961. Initially, 40 States became members of the commission. The IOC assists governments to address their individual and collective ocean and coastal management needs, through the sharing of knowledge, information and technology as well as through the co-ordination of programs and building capacity in ocean and coastal research, observations and services.
The National Institute of Oceanography, founded on 1 January 1966 as one of 38 constituent laboratories of the CSIR, is a self-governing research organisation in India that conducts scientific research and studies on the unique oceanographic features of the Northern Indian Ocean. It is headquartered in Goa and has regional offices in Kochi, Mumbai, and Visakhapatnam.
Marine engineering is the engineering of boats, ships, submarines, and any other marine vessel. Here it is also taken to include the engineering of other ocean systems and structures – referred to in certain academic and professional circles as “ocean engineering.”
The Census of Marine Life was a 10-year, US $650 million scientific initiative, involving a global network of researchers in more than 80 nations, engaged to assess and explain the diversity, distribution, and abundance of life in the oceans. The world's first comprehensive Census of Marine Life — past, present, and future — was released in 2010 in London. Initially supported by funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the project was successful in generating many times that initial investment in additional support and substantially increased the baselines of knowledge in often underexplored ocean realms, as well as engaging over 2,700 different researchers for the first time in a global collaborative community united in a common goal, and has been described as "one of the largest scientific collaborations ever conducted".
The Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences (BIOS) is an independent, non-profit marine science and education institute located in Ferry Reach, St. George's, Bermuda. Since modest beginnings as a seasonal field station in 1903, BIOS has grown into an internationally recognized center for ocean science, atmospheric research and environmental monitoring and mapping. By investing in top-tier resident scientists and robust infrastructure—including R/V Atlantic Explorer, our UNOLS-compliant oceanographic research vessel—BIOS stands as a fact-based voice in a crowded conversation around the state of our planet’s ocean and climate.
The vast scale of the oceans, the difficulty and expense of making measurements due to the hostility of the environment and the internationality of the marine environment has led to a culture of data sharing in the oceanographic data community. As far back as 1961 UNESCO's Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) set up IODE to enhance marine research, exploitation and development by facilitating the exchange of oceanographic data and information.
The World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS) is a taxonomic database that aims to provide an authoritative and comprehensive list of names of marine organisms.
The RV Zeeleeuw was a marine research vessel owned, maintained, and operated by VLOOT dab. The Flanders Marine Institute took care of the coordination of the scientific program and managed the research equipment.
The International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) is an independent think tank founded in 1990 working to shape and inform international policy on sustainable development governance. The institute has three offices in Canada - Winnipeg, Ottawa, and Toronto, and one office in Geneva, Switzerland. It has over 150 staff and associates working in over 30 countries.
The European Marine Board is a pan-European network of national organizations involved in marine research which are either research funding organizations, research performing organizations, or nationally based consortia of third-level institutes. The European Marine Board (EMB) is the leading European think tank in marine science policy. The Board provides a platform for its member organizations to develop common priorities, to advance marine research, and to bridge the gap between science and policy to meet future marine science challenges and opportunities. Established in 1995, it is a partnership facilitating enhanced cooperation between European organizations involved in marine science towards development of a common vision on the research priorities and strategies for marine science in Europe. It also facilitates enhanced cooperation between stakeholders involved in supporting, delivering and using marine research and technology.
The ship RV Simon Stevin is used to perform coastal oceanographic research in the Southern Bight of the North Sea and in the eastern part of the English Channel. It also serves as training platform for students from marine scientific and maritime studies and as a test platform for new marine and maritime technologies. Pupils and students from primary and secondary schools are offered the opportunity to step aboard for educational excursions.
Schmidt Ocean Institute (SOI) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit operating foundation established in March 2009 by Eric Schmidt and Wendy Schmidt. The Institute's goal is to advance innovative oceanographic research and discovery through technological advancement, collaborative research, outreach and education, and open sharing of information. SOI supports oceanographic research by providing collaborators with free ship time aboard their research vessel Falkor (too) and expert technical shipboard support. Collaborating researchers and institutions utilizing Falkor commit to openly share and communicate the outcomes of their research, including raw observations and data. Research proposals are reviewed through a peer-reviewed process and assessed based on their potential for technological innovation, oceanographic research, and overall impact. Since its inception in 2009, SOI has supported over 60 expeditions all around the globe.
NOAAS George B. Kelez, previously NOAAS George B. Kelez, was an American research vessel in commission in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) fleet from 1972 to 1980. Prior to her NOAA career, she operated under the United States Fish and Wildlife Service′s Bureau of Commercial Fisheries from 1962 to 1970 as US FWS George B. Kelez and the National Marine Fisheries Service from 1970 to 1972 as NOAAS George B. Kelez.
The Interim Register of Marine and Nonmarine Genera (IRMNG) is a taxonomic database which attempts to cover published genus names for all domains of life from 1758 in zoology up to the present, arranged in a single, internally consistent taxonomic hierarchy, for the benefit of Biodiversity Informatics initiatives plus general users of biodiversity (taxonomic) information. In addition to containing over 490,000 published genus name instances as at March 2020, the database holds over 1.7 million species names, although this component of the data is not maintained in as current or complete state as the genus-level holdings. IRMNG can be queried online for access to the latest version of the dataset and is also made available as periodic snapshots or data dumps for import/upload into other systems as desired.
The Ocean Biodiversity Information System (OBIS), formerly Ocean Biogeographic Information System, is a web-based access point to information about the distribution and abundance of living species in the ocean. It was developed as the information management component of the ten year Census of Marine Life (CoML) (2001-2010), but is not limited to CoML-derived data, and aims to provide an integrated view of all marine biodiversity data that may be made available to it on an open access basis by respective data custodians. According to its web site as at July 2018, OBIS "is a global open-access data and information clearing-house on marine biodiversity for science, conservation and sustainable development." 8 specific objectives are listed in the OBIS site, of which the leading item is to "Provide [the] world's largest scientific knowledge base on the diversity, distribution and abundance of all marine organisms in an integrated and standardized format".
Anthony J. J. ("Tony") Rees is a British-born software developer, data manager and biologist resident in Australia since 1986, and previously a data manager with CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research. He is responsible for developing a number of software systems currently used in science data management, including c-squares, Taxamatch, and IRMNG, the Interim Register of Marine and Nonmarine Genera. He has also been closely involved with the development of other biodiversity informatics initiatives including the Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS), AquaMaps, and the iPlant Taxonomic Name Resolution Service (TNRS).
