Welcome to the September SOOS Update and an exciting start to the second half of the year. SOOS welcomes a new Executive Committee and is working towards a new Science and Implementation Plan with the current Implementation Plan finishing at the end of 2020.

22nd August was SOOS's 9th Birthday with the first day of the SOOS IPO on 22nd August, 2011!  From no logo, committee, or community to an international network with over 500 subscribers, an executive committee, scientific steering committee, data management sub-committee, 11 working groups and 12 task teams (3 currently active), SOOS has certainly grown since this first day!

In addition to welcoming the new EXCOM team and the a new Science and Implementation Plan, this issue includes a reflection on the impact of COVID on SOOS and global polar and ocean research, SOOS at SCAR2020, exciting new updates and outputs from SOOS working groups and data committee, as well as more news from the SOOS sponsors and broader community!

Enjoy!


New EXCOM

Last SOOS Update we farewelled SOOS’s two previous co-chairs, Andrew Constable and Sebastiaan Swart, and we are exciting to announce our new SOOS EXCOM who started 1^st July; new co-chairs, Eileen Hoffman (Dominion University, United States) and Mike Williams (NIWA, New Zealand), and Sian Henley (University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom) joining the EXCOM as vice chair. We look forward to working with Eileen, Mike and Sian building the future for SOOS.

 

As much of the world is heavily affected by the COVID pandemic, there has also been a strong impact on polar and oceanic observations (see an article including statements from many polar and oceanic communities here). Many international conferences and annual meetings planned for 2020 have had to be postponed or moved online. SOOS is no exception, with the SOOS annual meetings of the EXCOM, Scientific Steering Committee (SSC), Data Management Sub-Committee (DMSC) and many working groups originally planning around SCAR2020 in Hobart, now modified to an online format. Whilst it is a shame to not have these in-person meetings this year, online meetings have often meant an increased number of attendees able to join. The DMSC met prior to SCAR2020 Online, with the highest number of attendees of any previous DMSC meeting (more information here). The West Antarctic Peninsula and Scotia Arc Regional Working Group (RWG) also held an SCAR2020-related event in the form of an online workshop with many short presentations and an online poster session (more information here). The Weddell Sea and Dronning Maud Land RWG workshop, which was planned to be held in April, is now running as an online workshop in October (see more information here). And other working groups including the Censusing Animals Populations from Space (CAPS) and Observing Systems Design (OSD) both recently held online meetings in lieu of an in-person online meeting (see more information on OSD here). The SOOS SSC meeting will also move to an online format, and will be held as a series of duplicated sessions the weeks starting the 26th October and 2nd November. Sessions will focus on the new Science and Implementation Plan, the Southern Ocean contribution to the UN Decade for Ocean Sciences, and other strategic planning activities.

This is the last year of SOOS’s current 5-year Implementation Plan (ending December 2020) and our initial science plan is now a decade old, thus SOOS is the process of drafting a combined Science and Implementation Plan (SIP) to span 2021-2025. The SOOS EXCOM and SSC will be working with our Working Groups and broader community to develop the new SIP, which will then go through an international review and approval by SOOS governing bodies, SCAR and SCOR. Through this process, the SOOS IPO will also be working towards developing standardised and simplified reporting processes for all working groups, and ensuring there is a streamline flow of information to the Southern Ocean community.