Censusing Animal Populations from Space
Antarctic ice seals are the most abundant mammals in the Southern Ocean, but surprising little is known about their populations or distribution. The ice seals are defined as those that breed on sea-ice and there are four species in the Antarctic; Weddell, crabeater, Ross and leopard seals. Because of the icy, dynamic and transient ice on which they breed, studying these species has always been a challenge and current knowledge of many aspects of their lives, including population trajectories and habitat preferences is sketchy. But the world which ice seals inhabit is changing. The sea ice, on which they are so dependent, is forecast to rapidly diminish with future climate change. Getting robust population estimates, trajectories and distribution maps of the seals and understanding their habitat preferences is therefore vital if we are to quantify how vulnerable the animals are and what effective protection measures could be put in place to conserve them.
That is where the Censusing Animal Populations from Space (CAPS) project comes in. In the past, planes, helicopters and ships have been used as the platform to count the seals, but these traditional methods of survey are slow and expensive, and rarely cover enough of the shifting sea ice habitat to give us robust estimates of the population. The CAPS project is using a different approach. The main initial focus is to acquire population estimates of pack ice seals using very high resolution satellite imagery. The satellites used acquire images with a pixel size of 31-50 cm on the ground and seals are clearly identifiable as clear dark oblongs on the white ice.
A multinational group of scientist is working on the problem, assessing the ability of the satellites to count the different seal species in several Antarctic regions. The seals range over huge areas so we are testing various approaches to counting, included crowd sourcing, machine learning and deep Learning. Our hope is that we can use this new technology to understand seal’s populations and why they prefer certain areas. This will then help us to understand how these animals will cope with the challenges of climate change over the decades to come.
From the EO October 2019
- October 2019
It has been a long time between newsletter issues so there is a lot to report! The SOOS community and Project Office have been very busy in 2019!
There have been a number of key meetings and workshops, publications, new staff members joining the SOOS International Project Office (IPO), changes in the SOOS sponsorship, reviewing of the SOOS 5-year Implementation Plan as well as changes to the broader ocean observing community.
SOOS International Project Office
I am delighted to announce the growth of the SOOS IPO and welcome two new staff members to our team.
Alyce Hancock has joined the IPO as our new Communications Officer, supporting SOOS working groups and task teams through community and stakeholder communication, updating the website, the SOOS contacts database and working group mailing lists, and more timely production of the SOOS newsletter!
Elizabeth Eyre joined the SOOS IPO team in April this year, to provide administration support for planning and organisation of the annual meetings. Amazingly efficient, Elizabeth is now the SOOS Administration Officer and will continue to support the IPO with finance and management expertise.
SOOS Sponsorship
Over the last 2 years, SOOS has worked hard to secure new sponsorship for the IPO, as support from our current main sponsor, Australian Research Council's Antarctic Gateway Partnership, ends in 2019. We thank the Antarctic Gateway Partnership for this sponsorship and support over the last four years. New sponsorship has now been secured for SOOS, for full details on the new sponsorship please see here.
SOOS Scientific Steering Committee
In mid-2020, Dr Sang Hoon Lee rotated off the SOOS Scientific Steering Committee in May this year, following his retirement and 4.5 years on the SSC. We thank Sang Hoon for his inspirational leadership, wisdom and guidance throughout these years, and in particular for his support in development of the Amundsen Sea Regional Working Group!
Next year, the current Co-Chairs, Andrew Constable and Sebastiaan Swart, rotate off the committee. We will be calling for nominations of new Scientific Steering Committee members in the coming months. The full call will be made in the next issue of the SOOS newsletter, or keep an eye for updates on our nominations page.
Changes in the Ocean Observing Community
There have been two recent changes within the greater ocean observing community that will have an impact for SOOS. We bid farewell to Tim Moltmann, the Director of Australia’s Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS). Tim has been a rock-solid support for SOOS since it first started in 2011 and we will miss his insight and knowledge – thank you for the last 8 years of support Tim! At the same time, we welcome Dr. Michelle Heupel as the new IMOS Director and look forward to working with Michelle and IMOS over the coming years! IMOS’s bid farewell to Tim, as well as a farewell and thanks from Tim is available here.
Secondly, we thank Dr. Ed Urban, Executive Director of the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR), Dr Ed Urban. Through SCOR, Ed was integral in the development of SOOS and has played an important role in shaping SOOS into the successful program that it is. We will miss his steady guidance and advice! We are excited to work more closely with the new SCOR Executive Director, Dr Patricia Miloslavich, when she starts the position in 2020.
SOOS Meetings in 2019
SOOS has had a busy year of meetings and workshops with the Korean Polar Research Institute (KOPRI) playing host to five meetings and workshops; the SOOS Executive Committee meeting, Scientific Steering Committee meeting, Data Management Sub-Committee meeting, the Amundsen-Bellingshausen Sea Regional Working Group workshop and a SOOS Data Hack. For more information on the KOPRI Week, see here.
The Weddell Sea - Dronning Maud Land Regional Working Group also held a workshop in January 2019 hosted by the Norwegian Polar Institute, Tromsø, Norway. The full report of this workshop is available here.
SOOS 2018 Annual Report
The SOOS annual report for 2018 is now complete and highlights the progress made against each of the SOOS objectives and for each SOOS Working Group and Task Team. The full report is available here.
OceanObs19 Publications
SOOS contributed to three community publications in the OceanObs19 special issue:
- Delivering Sustained, Coordinated and Integrated Observations of the Southern Ocean for Global Impact
- Constraining Southern Ocean Air-Sea-Ice Fluxes through Enhanced Observations
- Ocean FAIR Data Services
If you would like more information on any of the above, or any of the articles in our latest newsletter, please contact me at the International Project Office ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ).
Louise Newman
Observing System Design WG Call for Participants
The Observing System Design Working Group aims to analyze methods and provide guidance for optimizing observational strategies. The working group is seeking interested participants to assist the mission and enhance collaboration on this important topic. This Observing System Design Working Group is a mechanism to identify and bring together a network of expertise as well as initiate discussions on the subject. Telecons and meetings will be periodically scheduled to discuss the subject and current research activities.
Overall goals include:
- Building a network of collaborators and expertise for observing system designs
- Instigating discussions on improving methodologies and capabilities for observing system design
- Providing consulting resources that the ocean observing community can go to for advice on observing system design
- Collaborating with other working groups to understand observational needs
Specific tasks include:
- Compiling and sharing useful methodologies
- Assessing methods for estimating covariance scales, also informing how well observable quantities constrain other properties of interest.
- Assessing mapping and reconstruction methods
- Assessing methods for observing system design experiments (OSSEs)
- Building user-friendly OSSE tools
For more information here.
SOOS Week at 2nd Institute of Oceanography, China
The Second Institute of Oceanography, State Oceanic Administration hosted SOOS for a week in May 2018. Annual meetings of the Scientific Steering Committee (SSC) and Executive Committee (EXCOM) took place alongside the SOOS Data Management Sub-Committee (DMSC) meeting and a workshop focused on Southern Ocean Modelling.
The minutes from the SSC annual meeting will be available here, and the DMSC are available here.
A workshop on “Southern Ocean Modelling: Status and Observation Data Requirements” brought together the SOOS modelling and scientific community and enhanced collaboration with Chinese researchers. This workshop was well added with international and Chinese presenters and participants. The full workshop report is available here.
SOOS thanks SCAR, SCOR and the many Chinese sponsors, and our host Prof. Dake Chen for the significant organisational and financial support provided in hosting these meetings.
SOOS Spends a Week at KOPRI
The Korean Polar Research Institute (KOPRI) hosted SOOS for a week in May this year for five meetings and workshops; the SOOS Executive Committee meeting, Scientific Steering Committee meeting, Data Management Sub-Committee meeting, the Amundsen-Bellingshausen Sea Regional Working Group workshop and a SOOS Data Hack.
The week started with the Amundsen and Bellingshausen SOOS Regional Working Group workshop held the 8-10th May at KOPRI. The full article including the report from this workshop is available here.
SOOS conducted its first Data Hack on the 15th May, see here for more information.
The week was concluded with annual meetings of the SOOS Scientific Steering Committee (SSC) and Data Management Sub-Committee (DMSC) were conducted over the 16-18th May 2019.
The minutes for the SSC will soon be available here, and the DMSC are available here.
SOOS thanks SCAR, SCOR and KOPRI for the its support over these meetings and workshops.
