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Scientific Discoveries That Changed How We See the Ocean · How To Protect The Ocean

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  What if some of the most important
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  scientific discoveries in the ocean did
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  not come from looking for answers,
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  but from noticing something unexpected?
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  An instrument suddenly goes silent.
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  A camera captures life moving faster than
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  anyone thought possible.
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  A platform designed to sit still tumbles
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  down to the sea floor and opens up a
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  decade of new science.
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  These are not accidents.
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  These are moments where
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  curiosity meets technology
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  and where long-term ocean observing
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  reveals stories we
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  could never tell before.
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  We're going to talk about scientific
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  discoveries on this episode of the How to
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  Protect the Ocean podcast.
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  Let's start the show.
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  Hey everybody, welcome back to another
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  exciting episode of the How
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  to Protect the Ocean podcast.
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  I'm your host, Andrew Lewin, and this is
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  the podcast where you find out what's
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  happening with the ocean,
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  how you could speak up for the ocean and
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  what you can do to live for a better
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  ocean by taking action.
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  And this episode is part of Surfacing
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  Secrets, Explore the
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  Planet and Know the Ocean.
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  It's a special series created with Ocean
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  Networks Canada that takes you beneath
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  the surface of the ocean to uncover how
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  science, technology and curiosity come
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  together to change what
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  we know about our planet.
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  Over the past few episodes, we explored
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  origins of Ocean Networks Canada, its
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  partnerships and the people behind one of
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  the most advanced ocean
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  observing systems in the world.
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  Today, we're focusing on one of my
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  favorite topics, which
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  is scientific discoveries.
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  We are talking about the moments when
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  data reveals something not one expected,
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  when instruments capture events that last
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  only seconds and when years of patience
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  suddenly pay off with a breakthrough that
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  reshapes our understanding of the ocean.
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  Joining me today are Richard Dewey,
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  former science director at Ocean Networks
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  Canada and one of the
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  original architects of the network.
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  Cohen Bauer, who is the science director
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  at ONC currently and Gwen Linter from
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  Natural Resources Canada, whose work on
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  the Fraser Delta has led to the world's
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  first discoveries in submarine landslides
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  and sediment dynamics.
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  Together, we will explore how real time
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  ocean monitoring unlocks discovery, why
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  sound has become one of the most powerful
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  tools in understanding the deep sea and
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  what these discoveries mean for ocean
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  health, coastal communities and our
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  relationship with the ocean itself.
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  This is a conversation about curiosity,
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  patience and what happens when we listen
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  closely to the ocean.
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  So here's the interview with Richard
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  Cohen and Gwen talking about ONC
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  scientific discoveries.
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  Enjoy and I'll talk to you after.
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  Hey Richard. Hey Cohen. Hey Gwen. Welcome
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  to the How to Protect the Ocean podcast.
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  Are you ready to talk about scientific
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  discoveries with the ONC
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  with Ocean Networks Canada?
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  Big time.
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  Right. I love it. All right. This is
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  going to be great because, you know,
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  we've had this ongoing, you know, monthly
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  podcast with Ocean Networks Canada and
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  it's been a lot of fun to discover the
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  art that goes on the indigenous
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  partnerships that we that ONC has and has
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  been working, you know, on those
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  relationships and continuing to grow
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  those relationships and into some
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  successful programs
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  and education as well.
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  And today we're talking about some of my
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  favorite things as well is is scientific
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  discovery, some things that we've
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  discovered, some of the things that have
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  come out of all this data that has come
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  down come up from the bottom of the sea,
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  which is which is a lot of fun.
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  So we have some experts here have been
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  working alongside or with Ocean Networks
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  Canada for for a long time. So it's going
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  to be great. I can't wait to get started.
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  So let's get started before we get into
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  the scientific discoveries. Let's give
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  just a brief intro. So just who you are
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  and what you do within this whole con
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  like this, this whole
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  thing of ocean networks Canada.
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  What we'll do, Richard, we'll start with
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  you. Why don't you just let us know your
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  just the name and your title?
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  Yeah, Richard Doody. I just retired, but
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  I was the prior science director with
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  Ocean Networks Canada.
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  And I was one of the original authors on
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  getting the whole system going, writing
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  the first proposal back in 2001. And I
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  was with Ocean Networks Canada for then
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  for about 22 years. So long time standing
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  as a as an oceanographer, leading the
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  science team at Ocean Networks Canada.
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  Fantastic. And Cohen, how about yourself?
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  Yeah, hello. I'm excited to be here. My
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  name is Cohen Bauer and I currently serve
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  as the Ocean Networks
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  Canada director of science.
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  My background has been marine
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  biogeochemistry broadly. And so I like to
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  think about marine biogeochemical cycle
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  in past, present and future scenarios.
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  And here at Ocean Networks Canada, one of
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  the leads of the science team, our role
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  really is to unlock that scientific
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  discovery using all the amazing tools
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  that Ocean Networks Canada provides the
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  data and also the
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  physical infrastructure.
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  And Gwen, how about yourself?
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  Hi, Andrew. I'm Gwen Linterne. I'm a
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  research scientist at Natural Resources
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  Canada and specifically a part of that
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  called the Geological
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  Survey of Canada Marine Section.
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  And we look at natural hazards. We look
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  at all sorts of processes on the seabed.
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  And I was lucky enough to be introduced
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  to Ocean Networks Canada by my former
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  manager, Phil Hill, who put me in charge
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  of leading, I guess, one of their their
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  sort of major projects from the
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  beginning, which was to understand all
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  the processes on the Fraser Delta.
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  And so I was running that for 16 years
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  and it's just been pulled out a year ago.
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  Fantastic. Love it. Love it. OK, let's
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  get into the whole thing.
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  Richard, since you retired, do you
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  remember, as you've been part of ONC for
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  many years, do you remember what
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  initially drew you to Ocean Science and
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  then what has actually kept all that
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  curiosity to life throughout your career
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  and has it continued
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  through your retirement?
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  Yeah, thanks, Andrew. The it goes a long
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  way back. I grew up in Victoria and my
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  family sailed on the Sailor Sea all the
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  time. We went cruising in the summertime.
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  We raced in the winter.
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  And so I sort of grew up very familiar
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  with being on the water and I did my
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  undergraduate at the University of
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  Victoria in physics and I knew I wanted
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  to go into research, but I
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  really didn't know what field.
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  And in my last year, you Vic, I had a
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  professor who was an oceanographer and he
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  said, well, why don't why
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  don't you go into oceanography?
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  And at that very moment, all the lights
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  went green. Everything just clicked.
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  Oh, man, I could I could study the ocean.
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  I could do something quite relevant. It
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  was very practical
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  and socially important.
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  And I would probably in my career live
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  near the ocean and be still able to
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  participate in activities and
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  recreational things on the ocean.
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  So that's what I did. I went into
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  oceanography and I managed to come back
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  to you, Vic, in the early 1990s. He
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  started working in this area and I've
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  spent almost my entire career working
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  primarily on coastal
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  flows and the Sailor Sea.
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  So so it's been a lifetime dream to to be
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  an oceanography and it's a very
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  privileged sort of existence because you
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  get to study or many scientists get to
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  study what they're most interested in and
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  and setting the ocean is very relevant to
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  everything we do around here.
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  That's amazing. I mean, you've had a long
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  career, especially with with O and C. Can
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  you remember a time where you were just
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  like, this is really incredible, like,
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  like a discovery, something that you saw
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  where you just like this is this
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  epitomizes what I what
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  I've been wanting to do.
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  I think the biggest impact or the most
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  amazing thing working with Oceanic Ridge
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  Canada was the fact that we were building
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  something with the science community and
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  it's a big network of researchers and we
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  were enabling new things
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  that they wanted to do.
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  And it was our job to go away, take their
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  ideas, build a system, install it in the
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  ocean, get it working and then work with
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  them to get scientific discoveries and
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  this network of researchers were talking
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  about hundreds of researchers doing many,
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  many different things.
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  And I think that was the continues to be
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  one of the most exciting aspects of
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  Oceanic Ridge Canada. We're making such a
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  big difference to so many researchers
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  across the all range of marine science.
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  So I think that was unanticipated and was
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  rewarding. Amazing. Now, Cohen, you know,
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  looking at the way O and C monitors data,
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  it really has changed the game in terms
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  of the amount of data that comes in and
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  what we can really
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  understand about the ocean.
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  Have you can you describe a moment where
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  like you having that real time data led
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  to something surprising that or
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  unexpected? Yeah, absolutely.
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  It's a lot, right? We live the network,
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  the ONC network by definition is very
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  data rich, right? So we are making
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  measurements every second across the
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  diversity of ocean environments.
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  And so it can be a challenge to really
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  keep up to date and monitor all those
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  streams that are happening in real time.
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  So there comes with an
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  intentionality, right?
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  And so when when we have a hypothesis or
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  a scientific question, it's important to
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  follow up on that. And I'll give you an
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  example. And so we deployed what's called
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  a benthic lander in the deep ocean.
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  And this contains some organic
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  substrates, one of them being seaweed.
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  And we really didn't know what would
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  happen to the seaweed in real time as it
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  resided in the deep ocean
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  in the oxygen minimum zone.
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  And so we would just watch the camera
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  feed, which is what the experiment was
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  about. And and sure enough, just by
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  watching this camera every day, different
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  deep sea organisms visited the site and
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  completely consumed the
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  seaweed on very rapid time scales.
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  And this was really surprising. And one
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  of the first experiments that we're aware
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  of that actually observed this in high
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  resolution. And so this type of
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  experiment would not have been possible
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  without the tools and the
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  network that ONC provides.
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  And so it feels pretty cool to be
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  involved in really leading edge science
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  like that. Yeah, it's incredible. I mean,
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  with so many instruments in the in the
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  actual in the water, how do you decide
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  what data to look at?
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  Like, how do you prioritize that? Are you
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  always like, where do you search? What
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  are you looking for when you look for
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  something new? How does that all get
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  disseminated from a science perspective
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  at Ocean Networks Canada?
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  I'll start and then and then I think
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  Richard's one. I mean, yeah, we have an
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  amazing we have an amazing team at Ocean
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  Networks Canada. That goes beyond the
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  science team, right? We have data
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  specialists that, you know, one of their
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  primary roles is to really monitor our
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  data streams and to ensure that those
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  data streams are of high quality.
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  And so that I think is the first pass on
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  on just ensuring that we don't have any
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  issues with instrumentations and that we
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  are collecting data that can
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  be robust and interpretable.
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  And then really, like the data that we
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  collected is not for ONC, it's for
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  everybody else. We want everybody else to
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  make use of this data and to come up and
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  create knowledge. And so really, then
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  it's engaging with the scientific
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  community to ask questions and interpret
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  that wealth of data.
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  I would follow on that was what we rely
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  on that research community as well to
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  help us monitor all these channels. Very
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  often we've installed a system with a
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  particular subgroup of researchers.
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  That's their area of interest. So they
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  may be monitoring those signals more
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  closely than then we're able to because
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  we've got hundreds and
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  hundreds of channels.
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  And very often they'll contact us and
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  say, oh, did you guys see this phenomenon
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  that happened or did you see that in the
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  camera feed? And it's we then go have a
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  look at it. We may know that there's
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  something happening. But then sure
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  enough, we look at that particular
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  section of data and
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  something new is has come about.
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  So we do rely on our research community
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  as well to help us
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  monitor all of these channels.
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  Amazing. And it's interesting when we
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  talk about all these things that you can
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  monitor. One thing that comes to mind is
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  when you and I discuss, we discussed that
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  the Delta Dynamics Laboratory, can you
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  just talk about one, like how important
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  that discovery was and how the whole lab
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  kind of came together?
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  Sure. Yeah. If I, I'll back up a little
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  bit. So the, the, we specifically wanted
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  to be looking at submarine landslides and
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  these are events that occurred just, you
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  know, they could take a few seconds and
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  they may occur just every
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  few months or every years.
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  And so that was the, the power of, of a,
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  of a, a live observatory is that we could
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  monitor for years and capture these
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  events to take just seconds.
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  And nothing else could have allowed us to
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  do that sort of work.
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  And so we were able to do ocean networks,
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  Canada with an experiment in mind saying
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  we'd like to use your network to, to look
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  at, at these events, Delta events and
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  submarine landslide events.
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  And so in that case, we were able to kind
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  of specify which instruments exactly and,
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  and even yet, there's still what they,
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  what we call a fire hose of data coming
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  at us on these, you know, we have
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  something like 14 instruments.
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  And we're putting out data at millisecond
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  intervals and all year, all year round.
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  And so there is a fire hose. And so we
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  kind of prioritize what we're going to
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  look at. And there's a lot of data that
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  we won't look at now, but that we'll pass
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  on to other scientists
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  and other generations even.
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  So the Delta dynamics lab came about as a
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  proposal right at the beginning from my
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  former manager, scientist, Phil Hill, who
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  wanted to look at all the Delta processes
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  that were taking place on the slope of
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  the Fraser Delta, an important river
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  coming out of Vancouver near the airport.
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  And there was sort of two main platforms.
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  One was a Delta platform measuring
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  oceanographic properties. And the second
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  was one that would penetrate into the
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  seabed to measure slope properties, slope
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  stability properties,
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  and that sort of thing.
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  The first one, the one that was meant to
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  be measuring water properties at one
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  point, it was picked up. Suddenly, we
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  lost data transmission to it. And in
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  looking at the data afterwards, we
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  determined that actually it had tumbled
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  down the slope from from a from an
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  avalanche, which was one of
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  the processes we were looking at.
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  But that wasn't the instrument that was
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  designed to do that. So that was that was sort of the start of the way.
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  It was the start of another 10 years of
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  research, specifically on that, that,
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  that, that we sort of opened up to the
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  world and we, we became sort of the lead
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  researchers in the world in that specific
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  topic of submarine landslides.
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  And so that, that was obviously an
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  unexpected event, you know, it led you to
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  a decade of, of studying and information.
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  But what did that teach you about the
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  forces at play in those Delta
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  environments like, like a
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  Frasier, like the Frasier River?
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  Yeah, there were a few sort of new things
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  in this. I mean, these type of, these
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  type of underwater avalanches, let's call
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  them, but they're actually called
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  turbidity currents, they're, they're a
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  mass of sediment and water that flow
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  hundreds of kilometers off coastlines and
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  can damage cables and
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  pipelines and that sort of thing.
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  They were known in the world, but they
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  were hardly measured at all. And so we
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  now had this platform that was basically
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  in the path of these and we, and we were,
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  you know, we were able to, to, to measure
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  the properties of them, but also the
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  frequencies, what they sort of what they
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  look like, the power
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  structures and these sorts of things.
• 1:16:25
  And so it really did also in this case,
• 1:16:30
  these were known to occur in submarine
• 1:16:32
  canyons. And they were canyons, you know,
• 1:16:35
  that's how canyons are formed often with
• 1:16:37
  these kind of repeated
• 1:16:38
  avalanches running through them.
• 1:16:41
  But in this case, this platform is
• 1:16:42
  actually on the outside of a canyon on
• 1:16:47
  just on bare slope of a delta. So that
• 1:16:50
  was, that was new to science to be
• 1:16:53
  measuring these things on just a just an
• 1:16:56
  open slope like that.
• 1:17:00
  And now that we now that we can know that
• 1:17:05
  they occur here, we've actually started
• 1:17:07
  to be able to predict them based on tides
• 1:17:09
  and how the rivers, how much sediment is
• 1:17:13
  coming out of the river
• 1:17:14
  and that sort of thing.
• 1:17:15
  And we can sort of go from almost having
• 1:17:17
  no measurements in the world to now
• 1:17:19
  practically predicting them just in that
• 1:17:22
  10 years of research
• 1:17:23
  on the on the network.
• 1:17:26
  I remember when, yeah, I guess a little
• 1:17:29
  story there I remember when Phil and Gwen
• 1:17:31
  came to us as as the builders and
• 1:17:33
  operators as O and C of the observatory.
• 1:17:37
  And they explained this experiment to us
• 1:17:38
  and they said, yeah, we want we'd like to
• 1:17:40
  be like to put these instruments down on
• 1:17:42
  the slope and measure data for a few
• 1:17:44
  years. And then we're just hoping that a
• 1:17:45
  landslide comes and takes them all out.
• 1:17:48
  And it was a bit of a shock to us because
• 1:17:50
  here we were investing all this effort
• 1:17:51
  and money. And one of the things we tried
• 1:17:53
  to do is make sure these instruments
• 1:17:55
  aren't lost and don't get carried away.
• 1:17:59
  And they stay there and say, and this
• 1:18:01
  whole experiment was an attempt to to
• 1:18:03
  say, no, we want we want we want a
• 1:18:05
  disaster to happen and
• 1:18:06
  turn up several times.
• 1:18:08
  Yeah, I would just say it was it's kind
• 1:18:11
  of like a beautiful closing the loop here
• 1:18:14
  in that, you know, Gwen and Richard are
• 1:18:16
  mentioning that this this work had been
• 1:18:18
  carried out for over a decade.
• 1:18:20
  And I'm the newest person to
• 1:18:24
  own see on this call. Right.
• 1:18:26
  And so I came in and I wasn't involved in
• 1:18:28
  the inception of this experiment, but I
• 1:18:30
  was on the ship when the experiment was
• 1:18:32
  recovered last year. So kind of
• 1:18:33
  bookending this and and then being
• 1:18:35
  described all the discoveries that came
• 1:18:37
  out of this work and then seeing this
• 1:18:39
  platform come out of the ocean in real
• 1:18:41
  time was like a
• 1:18:42
  really special experience.
• 1:18:44
  Right. And just being connected to
• 1:18:46
  experiments that I wasn't involved in
• 1:18:49
  directly, but it's so informative and a
• 1:18:52
  great learning experience. So I felt
• 1:18:53
  really lucky to be there.
• 1:18:55
  Yeah, I can imagine it and going like
• 1:18:57
  take me through that part where you
• 1:18:59
  retrieve the the the instrumentation
• 1:19:02
  after, you know, losing it and then
• 1:19:04
  you're going through the data.
• 1:19:07
  You know what? What is your reaction when
• 1:19:09
  you realize when it happened and what had
• 1:19:13
  happened? What like what goes through
• 1:19:14
  your mind when you see
• 1:19:15
  that the Eureka moment?
• 1:19:19
  Yeah. So it's a little bit. It's a little
• 1:19:23
  bit of a slow process.
• 1:19:24
  So this took years to get to this point,
• 1:19:26
  building the platforms, getting down.
• 1:19:29
  And then, of course, we lose the signal
• 1:19:32
  from this large major installation on on
• 1:19:35
  on the ocean that was Canada. We lose the
• 1:19:38
  signal and the all of the engineers and
• 1:19:42
  the managers and all the people, as
• 1:19:43
  Richard said, are are concerned.
• 1:19:46
  How are we what's happened? How and so
• 1:19:47
  they're looking into what's happened. How
• 1:19:49
  are we going to get this
• 1:19:50
  back and that sort of thing.
• 1:19:52
  And as scientists, we're sort of looking
• 1:19:54
  at each other thinking, could this be
• 1:19:56
  could this be it? And and so we, you
• 1:20:01
  know, we spent a few days going through
• 1:20:04
  all of the last few seconds of data and
• 1:20:07
  and eventually, you know, eventually you
• 1:20:10
  just I think that the main one.
• 1:20:14
  It's all tangled because the instrument
• 1:20:16
  was tumbling. But once we saw that, you
• 1:20:18
  know, the instrument had tumbled, you
• 1:20:20
  could see that clearly in the pressure
• 1:20:22
  data that the instrument
• 1:20:23
  was tumbling down the slope.
• 1:20:25
  And once we put it all together, you sort
• 1:20:27
  of, I guess you ask what it's like if you
• 1:20:29
  kind of at that point, you sort of lean
• 1:20:32
  back in your chair and clap your hands
• 1:20:33
  together and say this, this is it.
• 1:20:37
  This is what we we had. We had some idea
• 1:20:40
  that this could occur on the Fraser
• 1:20:42
  Delta. We we had seen sand waves before
• 1:20:44
  that indicate that sentiment's moving in
• 1:20:46
  a single direction, just
• 1:20:48
  like sand dunes on land.
• 1:20:50
  And we we'd sort of seen evidence that
• 1:20:51
  these could occur. And and so it was it's
• 1:20:55
  it's kind of a big moment in your career
• 1:20:58
  to be working towards something and then
• 1:21:00
  and then be able to just say that is it.
• 1:21:03
  We have irrefutable proof. Yeah, I can
• 1:21:06
  imagine. This is this is great. And I'm
• 1:21:09
  sure we could do an entire episode on the
• 1:21:11
  Delta on the Delta Dynamics Laboratory.
• 1:21:14
  But we're going to switch over to a
• 1:21:16
  little bit, Richard. I want to talk about
• 1:21:17
  acoustic sound and the acoustic
• 1:21:20
  instrumentation that I want to use is
• 1:21:21
  now, from my perspective, like in my work
• 1:21:24
  that I've done, you know, I've done some
• 1:21:26
  work with, you know, acoustics when we
• 1:21:28
  look at tracking
• 1:21:29
  marine mammals and so forth.
• 1:21:31
  We know around around oil and gas
• 1:21:33
  installations and things like that. But
• 1:21:35
  for O and C, like what are some of the
• 1:21:37
  the I guess the most memorable or
• 1:21:39
  mysterious sounds that that that O and C
• 1:21:42
  has recorded on the sea floor?
• 1:21:44
  Because this is something I don't think
• 1:21:45
  people realize that the sounds that are
• 1:21:47
  coming from the sea floor. Right. Well,
• 1:21:50
  we have the hydrophones either on the
• 1:21:53
  water microphones, basically. Yeah. And
• 1:21:55
  they're extremely sensitive.
• 1:21:57
  And they can measure the pinkest sounds.
• 1:22:00
  And so they're seeming or they're seeing
• 1:22:03
  a horizon, if you
• 1:22:04
  like, that is very large.
• 1:22:06
  They can hear things that may be
• 1:22:08
  kilometers away. And in the coastal
• 1:22:10
  waters, like the Strait of Georgia, you
• 1:22:13
  sort of have a background in of almost
• 1:22:14
  continuous ferry traffic and greater
• 1:22:17
  traffic and superimposed on that.
• 1:22:19
  Occasionally, we get the orca whale
• 1:22:21
  vocalizations. So that's pretty exciting,
• 1:22:23
  like you're talking about when when we're
• 1:22:25
  seeing we're hearing marine mammals and
• 1:22:28
  then offshore, we have hydrophones at
• 1:22:32
  places like the Endeavor Ridge, where
• 1:22:36
  there's earthquakes and
• 1:22:37
  other other things happening.
• 1:22:39
  There's there's events, hot vents, black
• 1:22:41
  smokers, and you can actually hear what
• 1:22:45
  sort of a venting sound and you can hear
• 1:22:47
  earthquakes. We often have earthquake
• 1:22:50
  sensors that are really feeling the
• 1:22:52
  movement of the earth. But earthquakes
• 1:22:54
  also generate sound.
• 1:23:03
  And so our hydrophones are picking up
• 1:23:06
  earthquake sounds grumbling and venting
• 1:23:08
  on a continuous basis. So one thing I can
• 1:23:11
  come back to sort of this idea of what
• 1:23:13
  was surprising is that how continuous
• 1:23:16
  sounds are throughout the ocean, whether
• 1:23:18
  you're in coastal waters
• 1:23:20
  or even deep in the ocean.
• 1:23:21
  There's a lot of sound, and it's
• 1:23:23
  pervasive, and it's there over time. And
• 1:23:27
  it's not quiet. I mean, often, most
• 1:23:31
  people are coming in this from going way
• 1:23:33
  back again, look at the ocean and go, Oh,
• 1:23:35
  I see the ocean and it's
• 1:23:36
  just this flat surface.
• 1:23:38
  And then, you know, if you're a scuba
• 1:23:39
  diver, you know, there's a lot more
• 1:23:41
  happening underneath the water. And this
• 1:23:43
  was sort of this is how what we've been
• 1:23:46
  able to do is open up this mystery of
• 1:23:48
  what's happening deep in the ocean. And
• 1:23:50
  it's a very dynamic environment and sound
• 1:23:53
  propagates a long way.
• 1:23:55
  So we're doing things from maybe
• 1:23:57
  kilometers away. And it's very, I
• 1:24:00
  wouldn't say it's noisy, but it's the
• 1:24:02
  sound almost all the time from all these
• 1:24:05
  different processes.
• 1:24:06
  How does listening to the sort of the
• 1:24:09
  listening to like ocean changes, like
• 1:24:10
  earthquakes and things like that? How
• 1:24:13
  does that help us, you know, understand
• 1:24:15
  what's happening in the places we can't
• 1:24:16
  see? Like, how does that help us for
• 1:24:18
  overall science and
• 1:24:19
  overall understanding of ocean?
• 1:24:21
  It's telling us how dynamic the ocean is.
• 1:24:24
  I mean, if we don't have those those
• 1:24:26
  indicators, we might think it's just it's
• 1:24:28
  a flat ocean on the top, we can't see
• 1:24:30
  what's happening down
• 1:24:30
  below. Nothing's happening.
• 1:24:32
  But but the sound and our sensors are
• 1:24:34
  really telling us and the platform we put
• 1:24:37
  down like the Delta site, but we have
• 1:24:39
  these platforms across the network are
• 1:24:42
  telling us that there are variations in
• 1:24:44
  what's happening all the time.
• 1:24:46
  And the sound gives us a big horizon. We
• 1:24:49
  can see again, maybe here, kilometers
• 1:24:52
  away. All these other sensors are
• 1:24:54
  measuring cameras, for example, are
• 1:24:56
  making a local processes.
• 1:24:58
  But almost everywhere we put down the
• 1:25:00
  sensors, things are happening all the
• 1:25:02
  time. And that's, again, the power of the
• 1:25:05
  observatory. It's we're not putting
• 1:25:06
  something down and turning the lights on
• 1:25:08
  or turning the
• 1:25:09
  instruments on once a week.
• 1:25:11
  It's continuous. We're listening to it 24
• 1:25:14
  seven, 52 weeks a year for 20 years. And
• 1:25:18
  what you realize is that the ocean is
• 1:25:20
  incredibly dynamic
• 1:25:21
  all the time everywhere.
• 1:25:22
  Yeah, go ahead, Gwen.
• 1:25:25
  I'd like to give a specific example of
• 1:25:27
  what Richard's talking about the aerial
• 1:25:30
  extent of sound because we're measuring
• 1:25:33
  these landslides, but you kind of have to
• 1:25:34
  be right on them to measure them and they put your instruments at risk.
• 1:25:37
  And so our partners around the world have
• 1:25:41
  been putting instruments in canyons on
• 1:25:45
  the request of oil companies or cable
• 1:25:47
  companies to determine how frequently
• 1:25:51
  these type of turbidity currents is what
• 1:25:54
  they're called these underwater
• 1:25:56
  landslides, how frequently
• 1:25:57
  they occur and how large they are.
• 1:26:00
  And so we, you know, we and that
• 1:26:04
  basically almost every time the
• 1:26:06
  instruments get wiped out and tumble down
• 1:26:08
  the slope and you it's hard and it's
• 1:26:10
  often you don't even get the data back
• 1:26:12
  because it wasn't
• 1:26:13
  cable transmitting life.
• 1:26:15
  And so we've started using hydro phones
• 1:26:17
  now to measure the sound of the
• 1:26:19
  landslides near them or even at a
• 1:26:22
  distance and started to get records of
• 1:26:25
  OK, now we can now we can put these kind
• 1:26:28
  of out of the way and safely measure the
• 1:26:30
  sounds of landslides, not only on these
• 1:26:34
  sediment slopes like we were talking
• 1:26:36
  about earlier, but in areas like the
• 1:26:39
  fjords of British Columbia.
• 1:26:41
  So we've deployed hydro phones there too,
• 1:26:44
  or ONC have hydro phones on in various
• 1:26:47
  places in the fjords of British Columbia
• 1:26:50
  and we've used them for listening for
• 1:26:52
  landslides dropping, rock slides dropping
• 1:26:55
  into the ocean, which could
• 1:26:56
  cause major tsunamis as well.
• 1:26:59
  So so we're using them as a kind of
• 1:27:01
  regional assessment tool to determine how
• 1:27:04
  large landslides are, how frequently they
• 1:27:06
  occur and and whether they could be used
• 1:27:09
  as an early warning to tsunamis.
• 1:27:14
  Sometimes you pick up things
• 1:27:15
  that you weren't expecting.
• 1:27:17
  Like we had the first hydro phone was in
• 1:27:19
  Sandwich Inlet and it turns out it's near
• 1:27:22
  an airport and we could hear planes
• 1:27:24
  flying overhead and we could in
• 1:27:26
  particular if there was a sea plane
• 1:27:28
  taking off or landing, you could hear you
• 1:27:30
  can hear the sea plane.
• 1:27:32
  How far down was this
• 1:27:33
  hydro phone that you can hear?
• 1:27:34
  About a hundred meters down and you hear
• 1:27:37
  the sea plane start up and as we've seen
• 1:27:40
  a sea plane take off, it ramps up and
• 1:27:42
  then leaves the water so the sound
• 1:27:45
  changes as it goes into the air.
• 1:27:47
  The other hydro phone that I think was
• 1:27:49
  really quite fun to listen to was when we
• 1:27:51
  installed in Cambridge Bay up in the
• 1:27:52
  Arctic, in the Canadian Arctic and at
• 1:27:55
  this site it gets
• 1:27:56
  frozen over in the winter.
• 1:27:58
  And we anticipated that we might hear
• 1:28:01
  some ice cracking and that
• 1:28:02
  was sort of scary to hear.
• 1:28:05
  You wonder because it's sort of a real
• 1:28:07
  violent cracking sound as the ice cracks.
• 1:28:11
  But then also as the ice got thicker, the
• 1:28:13
  community started to drive on the ice,
• 1:28:16
  both in cars and in snowmobiles.
• 1:28:18
  And so the pervasive sound later in the
• 1:28:20
  winter was all the community driving on
• 1:28:22
  top of the ice in
• 1:28:23
  their snowmobiles and cars.
• 1:28:24
  So we had not anticipated that and that
• 1:28:27
  gave us sort of a window into the
• 1:28:30
  community going out on the ice and using
• 1:28:32
  the ice as a highway.
• 1:28:34
  I love that. I think that's awesome.
• 1:28:38
  What has Richard, when we talked earlier,
• 1:28:41
  you mentioned, you know, the Salish Sea,
• 1:28:45
  which is, you know, the promise that's
• 1:28:47
  around there has is remarkably healthy.
• 1:28:51
  What what are those key oceanographic
• 1:28:54
  features that that make it so healthy?
• 1:28:57
  Because, you know, when we think about
• 1:28:59
  oceans, a lot of them, we think that
• 1:29:00
  they're in dire need.
• 1:29:01
  And what makes Salish Sea so special that
• 1:29:04
  it could be so resilient?
• 1:29:06
  Well, there are there are a lot of places
• 1:29:07
  in the in the ocean that we
• 1:29:09
  should be concerned about.
• 1:29:10
  And one of the processes that leads to
• 1:29:12
  this is when the ocean water gets
• 1:29:13
  stagnant and doesn't renew.
• 1:29:16
  You can consume all the nutrients and
• 1:29:20
  maybe through
• 1:29:21
  respiration consume all the oxygen.
• 1:29:24
  And so water that isn't renewed can
• 1:29:25
  become sort of we call
• 1:29:27
  them dead zones in the ocean.
• 1:29:29
  But it turns out with the Salish Sea, we
• 1:29:31
  have two large inputs of water.
• 1:29:34
  We have rain in the winter. So all the
• 1:29:35
  coastal rivers
• 1:29:36
  discharged a lot of fresh water.
• 1:29:38
  And in the summer in May and June, we
• 1:29:40
  have the Fraser River discharging a lot
• 1:29:42
  of the snow melt from the
• 1:29:44
  interior of British Columbia.
• 1:29:46
  And all this fresh water has to
• 1:29:47
  eventually make its way
• 1:29:48
  out into the Pacific Ocean.
• 1:29:49
  If it didn't, then the Salish Sea would
• 1:29:51
  become fresh eventually.
• 1:29:53
  And it's in its migration
• 1:29:54
  out to the Pacific Ocean.
• 1:29:56
  We also have strong tides. And the
• 1:29:58
  combination of these two processes, the
• 1:30:00
  estrine circulation and the strong tides,
• 1:30:02
  gives rise to a very large
• 1:30:04
  exchange with the Pacific Ocean.
• 1:30:06
  We have a large volume of water flowing
• 1:30:07
  out of the surface and an almost equally
• 1:30:10
  large volume of water flowing in that
• 1:30:12
  depth in one of the
• 1:30:13
  straight deep at the bottom.
• 1:30:16
  And the water that's coming into the
• 1:30:17
  Salish Sea in large
• 1:30:18
  volumes is full of nutrients.
• 1:30:21
  And the tidal mixing brings down oxygen
• 1:30:23
  and aerates the water.
• 1:30:25
  And as a result, these inner basins like
• 1:30:27
  the Strait of Georgia have a continuous
• 1:30:30
  supply of nutrients and get
• 1:30:32
  reoxygenated on a regular basis.
• 1:30:34
  And so for many inland seas, if the water
• 1:30:37
  is stagnant and sort of doesn't exchange,
• 1:30:40
  it becomes really sort of a dead and
• 1:30:43
  lifeless environment.
• 1:30:44
  But the Salish Sea has this wonderful
• 1:30:46
  combination of a large estrine
• 1:30:48
  circulation and strong tides, which
• 1:30:50
  results in a very active exchange with
• 1:30:53
  the Pacific Ocean, brings in
• 1:30:54
  nutrients, aerates the water.
• 1:30:57
  And so we have lots of nutrients and lots
• 1:30:58
  of oxygen, which is just what a good
• 1:31:00
  habitat would need to be healthy.
• 1:31:04
  And like, has ONC contributed to that
• 1:31:06
  information in terms of knowing all this
• 1:31:09
  stuff coming in and out?
• 1:31:10
  Absolutely. There's a researcher in
• 1:31:13
  particular, Rich Polovich at the
• 1:31:14
  University of British Columbia, who's
• 1:31:16
  been with us for a very long time.
• 1:31:18
  He's been originally
• 1:31:19
  designing the system.
• 1:31:21
  And he's worked up a majority of the data
• 1:31:24
  for the Strait of Georgia that has really
• 1:31:26
  captured and quantified this deep water
• 1:31:28
  renewal and the deep
• 1:31:29
  water exchange processes.
• 1:31:31
  And he's got about a half a dozen
• 1:31:33
  publications that are really showing the
• 1:31:36
  enlightenment of this and demonstrate how
• 1:31:39
  the observatory has contributed to our
• 1:31:41
  understanding of this key process.
• 1:31:44
  Fantastic.
• 1:31:45
  Cohen, for the Salish Sea, like looking
• 1:31:47
  forward, and what is the, what are the
• 1:31:53
  opportunities for ONC to really help have
• 1:31:56
  an even better understanding of the
• 1:31:58
  Salish Sea and its future
• 1:31:59
  for to keep it a healthy sea?
• 1:32:03
  Yeah, it's a great question.
• 1:32:05
  Recently, just this past summer, ONC
• 1:32:09
  convened a diverse community of
• 1:32:12
  researchers, NGOs, government
• 1:32:15
  organizations, coastal communities at ONC
• 1:32:18
  to talk about the future of the ONC
• 1:32:21
  observing system in this
• 1:32:22
  context of the Salish Sea.
• 1:32:24
  And so it was a really enlightening
• 1:32:27
  workshop with a lot of contributions from
• 1:32:29
  from our diverse community. And it was
• 1:32:31
  exactly asking that question. How does
• 1:32:33
  the ONC facility evolve and continue to
• 1:32:36
  contribute the observations and tools
• 1:32:38
  needed to ensure that the Salish Sea
• 1:32:41
  remains a healthy ecosystem?
• 1:32:44
  One of the interesting things that came
• 1:32:45
  up in that discussion is when you have
• 1:32:48
  this wealth of data, how do you
• 1:32:50
  operationalize it to learn something or
• 1:32:53
  to, you know, for lack of a better way of
• 1:32:57
  saying it, manage the Salish Sea so that
• 1:32:59
  again, it remains, it can
• 1:33:01
  be stewarded and protected.
• 1:33:04
  And this concept of a digital twin came
• 1:33:07
  up. And so this is, you know, a frontier
• 1:33:11
  sort of space in the big data and
• 1:33:13
  modeling world. And a digital twin is a
• 1:33:16
  model of a natural environment, or it
• 1:33:19
  could be a model of many models.
• 1:33:22
  And so what you need to make an accurate
• 1:33:24
  model is is robust data observations that
• 1:33:27
  tell you how the ocean environment is
• 1:33:29
  behaving and how these processes are
• 1:33:31
  interacting. And so one way I think that
• 1:33:34
  ONC could intersect with this sort of
• 1:33:37
  predictive modeling or digital twin style
• 1:33:39
  model of this region of
• 1:33:41
  this of this urban sea seaway
• 1:33:44
  is to just ensure that we have the right
• 1:33:46
  observations in the right places and
• 1:33:48
  those observations and that data is of
• 1:33:50
  high quality. So, you know, us being an
• 1:33:53
  infrastructure provider, it's really
• 1:33:55
  connecting with the community to ensure
• 1:33:58
  that we have the right tools in the right
• 1:34:00
  places, right? At the Fraser River Delta,
• 1:34:03
  in the urban sea ways of the Vancouver
• 1:34:05
  ports, for example, in Santa Chinlet,
• 1:34:08
  right? Where should these tools be and
• 1:34:10
  what should they be comprised of so that
• 1:34:11
  we can continue to provide the data
• 1:34:14
  and the
• 1:34:14
  well into the future that people in the
• 1:34:16
  sailor sea will rely on.
• 1:34:18
  Yeah, amazing. And I think also too, when
• 1:34:20
  you think about not just from a local
• 1:34:21
  aspect, but also from an international
• 1:34:23
  aspect, you know, a number of years ago,
• 1:34:25
  there was this phenomenon in
• 1:34:27
  the Pacific called the blob.
• 1:34:28
  And, you know, it came down and it heated
• 1:34:30
  up the Pacific Ocean and we were in an El
• 1:34:33
  Nino year. So it just, it just sort of
• 1:34:36
  exacerbated the fact that there was such
• 1:34:37
  a heat bloom sort of in the ocean.
• 1:34:41
  Now, I remember Richard, you and I were
• 1:34:42
  talking, I believe, you know, it didn't
• 1:34:44
  like the instruments didn't pick up the
• 1:34:45
  blob fully, but it did have, you know,
• 1:34:48
  some footprint in the data of this blob.
• 1:34:52
  What have you learned from like these big
• 1:34:54
  events, you know, where you can capture a
• 1:34:57
  little bit of it and what have you
• 1:34:58
  learned because, you know, if you have
• 1:34:59
  all this, this, these data acquisition
• 1:35:02
  instruments in the water and you can
• 1:35:04
  capture some part of this event.
• 1:35:06
  What is that? What did that help you
• 1:35:08
  teach and then help ONC kind of learn
• 1:35:10
  from these events? Yeah, that was a major
• 1:35:12
  event. And the blob we're talking about
• 1:35:14
  the marine heat wave that started in 2023
• 1:35:18
  2013 to 14 was really far out to see.
• 1:35:22
  It was at the surface layer of the ocean
• 1:35:23
  in the Gulf of Alaska. The entire
• 1:35:26
  Northeast Pacific is very, very warm that
• 1:35:28
  spring of 2014. And it wasn't until about
• 1:35:32
  a year later that that water started
• 1:35:34
  coming near shore that
• 1:35:35
  our sensors picked it up.
• 1:35:37
  And so it was kind of exciting to see as
• 1:35:40
  this blob evolved from a an offshore
• 1:35:42
  event to coastal phenomenon. It raised
• 1:35:47
  the temperature of the coastal waters in
• 1:35:49
  particular along Vancouver Island and
• 1:35:51
  into the sea by about two
• 1:35:53
  degrees for two or three years.
• 1:35:56
  And it stuck around for a very long time.
• 1:35:59
  And again, this was not at all
• 1:36:01
  anticipated. We, you know, we're familiar
• 1:36:03
  with marine heat waves. They seem to be
• 1:36:06
  coming more frequent with climate change.
• 1:36:08
  But their persistence that it blasted
• 1:36:10
  offshore for over a year and then in
• 1:36:13
  short for another two to three years. So
• 1:36:15
  the heat wave that was called the blob
• 1:36:19
  had such a large
• 1:36:21
  temporal and physical footprint.
• 1:36:23
  It was really quite remarkable. It's
• 1:36:25
  probably the largest marine heat wave
• 1:36:27
  ever recorded and our data was
• 1:36:29
  contributing to its understanding as it
• 1:36:31
  when it came ashore and it lasted for
• 1:36:34
  three years. It elevated the
• 1:36:35
  temperatures in the sailors sea.
• 1:36:37
  We had in fact, there's sort of an annual
• 1:36:40
  cycle. This is one of the things that the
• 1:36:41
  observatory picks up. It picks up all the
• 1:36:44
  variations, including annual cycles. And
• 1:36:47
  during when the blob was along in the
• 1:36:50
  sailors sea, the coldest temperatures we
• 1:36:54
  were seeing those two years like the 2016
• 1:36:56
  and 2017, the coldest temperatures were
• 1:36:59
  warmer than the warmest
• 1:37:02
  temperatures in some prior years.
• 1:37:03
  So the whole system had shifted up by two
• 1:37:06
  or three degrees, which is which was not
• 1:37:08
  anticipated. And the data, this long
• 1:37:12
  record really helped
• 1:37:13
  us put it into context.
• 1:37:16
  Absolutely. It's amazing too, because as
• 1:37:17
  a scientist, you know, you you see these
• 1:37:19
  events happen and you always want you
• 1:37:21
  always like, oh man, I wish I had some
• 1:37:22
  instruments in the
• 1:37:23
  water to detect that. Right.
• 1:37:24
  Right. Here you have this long term data
• 1:37:26
  set that's been going on for decades and
• 1:37:29
  you had it, you know, and you can you're
• 1:37:31
  like, oh, we already have
• 1:37:32
  it. Here you go. And it's free.
• 1:37:34
  Like just we're going to push it on to
• 1:37:35
  whoever wants it and whoever wants to do
• 1:37:37
  studies on it. And I think that's just
• 1:37:39
  it's so valuable in the scientific
• 1:37:41
  community these days, because so many
• 1:37:42
  times just like, ah, I wish I had, you
• 1:37:45
  know, the data for that.
• 1:37:46
  Or it would have been really cool to
• 1:37:47
  monitor that. That is such an important
• 1:37:50
  part. And to also like transfer it to
• 1:37:53
  things that like you don't expect, you
• 1:37:55
  know, with these with
• 1:37:56
  these discoveries, right?
• 1:37:57
  There is a story that came out and I have
• 1:37:59
  to ask, I don't know who was but I need
• 1:38:01
  to know more about measuring the solar
• 1:38:04
  flare or the
• 1:38:05
  interference from a solar flare.
• 1:38:07
  Can someone talk about it where, you
• 1:38:10
  know, you can actually measure it and,
• 1:38:11
  you know, a solar flare of all things
• 1:38:13
  like in oceanographic data.
• 1:38:15
  It connects, it connects nicely to one of
• 1:38:17
  your earlier questions and like, how do
• 1:38:20
  you observe anomalies or special things
• 1:38:23
  that are happening in our data? And this
• 1:38:25
  is an example of a data specialist that
• 1:38:28
  ONC who's the person that recognizes
• 1:38:30
  this, his name's Alex.
• 1:38:32
  So he's monitoring a bunch of streams of
• 1:38:35
  sensor data. And he recognized that there
• 1:38:38
  was something weird happening in this
• 1:38:39
  data and all of this, in particular in
• 1:38:43
  the compasses. So there's a particular
• 1:38:44
  instrument that we have in many different
• 1:38:46
  locations on our network called an ADCP.
• 1:38:49
  And as part of this instrument, there's a
• 1:38:51
  compass sensor as part of it. And the
• 1:38:54
  compass readings were behaving strangely
• 1:38:57
  all at the same time. And so then Alex
• 1:39:00
  contacted a few other people that I don't
• 1:39:02
  see and it's like, what could be going on
• 1:39:04
  here? His initial hypothesis that is that
• 1:39:07
  it could have been an earthquake.
• 1:39:08
  Right. But then in reading more into it,
• 1:39:12
  it just happened to coincide with a major
• 1:39:15
  geomagnetic storm like a solar flare
• 1:39:17
  event, right? And this type of
• 1:39:20
  electromagnetism in the atmosphere was
• 1:39:24
  essentially screwing up the compasses
• 1:39:27
  across the ONC network.
• 1:39:29
  It's really that cool, right? So
• 1:39:32
  something that's happening. It's like an
• 1:39:35
  astronomical phenomenon, but we're
• 1:39:36
  recording it in the deepest parts of the
• 1:39:39
  ocean. So it's pretty neat that we don't
• 1:39:42
  really quite understand the implications
• 1:39:44
  of that yet. Right now that just still
• 1:39:46
  stands as like a very cool observation.
• 1:39:49
  You know, why that's important and how we
• 1:39:52
  can learn from that. We're still working
• 1:39:54
  that out. And that's part of the process,
• 1:39:56
  right? Yeah, well, I think this again,
• 1:39:58
  it's the power of having these these
• 1:40:00
  instruments in the water and available.
• 1:40:03
  And the data available to so many people,
• 1:40:05
  you know, somebody picking it up that you
• 1:40:07
  may not know of because it's available,
• 1:40:08
  they asked for it, they get it and all of
• 1:40:10
  a sudden, they're like, well, wait a
• 1:40:11
  minute, let's, let's, let's, let's go, go
• 1:40:14
  into this piece of data because there's
• 1:40:15
  some anomaly here that happens.
• 1:40:18
  We've talked about solar flares. We've
• 1:40:20
  talked about earthquakes. We've talked
• 1:40:21
  about line, land slides. You know, we've
• 1:40:24
  talked about, you know, the blob and
• 1:40:26
  anomalies in oceanographic data.
• 1:40:29
  You know, this data has been around for a
• 1:40:32
  long time. It's going to continue to be
• 1:40:33
  around for a long time. How often do
• 1:40:35
  these discoveries happen? Is it like
• 1:40:38
  every, every five years you're like,
• 1:40:39
  okay, let's take a look in the data and
• 1:40:41
  let's, let's see if
• 1:40:42
  there's any anomalies here.
• 1:40:43
  Like what, like for, I guess, COVID is
• 1:40:45
  for you, like what's the process and
• 1:40:47
  like, how do we discover these mysterious
• 1:40:49
  discoveries in so much data? Is it, is it
• 1:40:53
  the power of the partnerships that that
• 1:40:56
  ONC has and the researchers that continue
• 1:40:59
  to try, like to
• 1:41:01
  continue to look at the data?
• 1:41:02
  Yeah, absolutely. It's definitely just
• 1:41:05
  working with the community. And I think
• 1:41:08
  it just takes a certain sense of
• 1:41:09
  creativity and thinking outside the box.
• 1:41:12
  I mean, you never know. I'm convinced
• 1:41:15
  that there's many, many, many discoveries
• 1:41:18
  like the ones that we've been talking
• 1:41:20
  about that already exist in the, in the
• 1:41:22
  data and archives that we have on the
• 1:41:23
  ONC, on the ONC network.
• 1:41:25
  And so it's just going to take that spark
• 1:41:28
  of inspiration or the right person asking
• 1:41:30
  the right question to say, Hey, what if
• 1:41:32
  we looked at that? And what do you think
• 1:41:34
  that means? And, and that's what
• 1:41:36
  scientific discovery is all about. And
• 1:41:38
  that's why working at ONC is
• 1:41:40
  such a cool and special job.
• 1:41:42
  Absolutely. Just never know what you're,
• 1:41:44
  what you're going to get. Gwen with
• 1:41:45
  working with, with NRCan for NRCan over
• 1:41:48
  these number of years and working with,
• 1:41:50
  with ONC during those years. How
• 1:41:54
  important is this partnership to the
• 1:41:57
  government? You know, in, in, in the
• 1:41:59
  research that it does and understanding
• 1:42:01
  this type, this part of the coastline and
• 1:42:03
  this part of the, the ocean so much. How,
• 1:42:06
  how valuable is that for, for NRCan and
• 1:42:10
  just the government of Canada in general?
• 1:42:11
  Well, to so it, you know, back in 25
• 1:42:15
  years ago, basically, our Institute,
• 1:42:19
  which is a government Institute out in,
• 1:42:21
  in North Saanich was the main Institute
• 1:42:25
  examining these things. Ocean at Risk
• 1:42:28
  Canada came along and started from almost
• 1:42:30
  nothing to now a very, very strong team
• 1:42:33
  that, that provides a lot of added
• 1:42:39
  benefit to the ocean.
• 1:42:40
  Benefit to our work. And lately, so even
• 1:42:46
  though the focus is based around
• 1:42:49
  observatories, these network
• 1:42:51
  observatories, Ocean at Risk Canada is
• 1:42:54
  also reaching out to scientists to see if
• 1:42:56
  they can help conduct experiments that
• 1:43:00
  give added value to the, to the sort of
• 1:43:03
  monitoring that they're
• 1:43:05
  doing on the experiments.
• 1:43:06
  And so there's, there are a number of
• 1:43:08
  cases where we've said, okay, you're
• 1:43:10
  going out there, you're going to be
• 1:43:12
  maintaining these, these, these networks.
• 1:43:15
  And can we design this other experiment
• 1:43:19
  that will tell us something more about,
• 1:43:22
  about what it is our various
• 1:43:25
  departments are looking at.
• 1:43:26
  I don't want to speak on behalf of all
• 1:43:28
  the departments. Our department is
• 1:43:31
  responsible for looking at seabed
• 1:43:34
  processes, natural hazards, geological
• 1:43:37
  histories, geological formations, and,
• 1:43:40
  and this sort of thing.
• 1:43:41
  And, and Ocean at Risk Canada has been
• 1:43:45
  absolutely critical on that I think,
• 1:43:48
  partly because of the, the president of
• 1:43:50
  Ocean at Risk Canada also comes from a
• 1:43:52
  marine geoscience background. So there's
• 1:43:55
  been a, there's been a lot of, a lot of
• 1:43:58
  emphasis on earthquake early warning and
• 1:44:01
  on tsunamis and on seabed pressures and
• 1:44:04
  on sort of these geological processes.
• 1:44:07
  So it's, it's, it's been, it's been good
• 1:44:10
  for, for our department
• 1:44:12
  natural resources Canada.
• 1:44:14
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:44:15
  I just want to comment that one of the,
• 1:44:17
  there's a couple of layers to this. One
• 1:44:20
  is you've got core sensors that have been
• 1:44:22
  out there the whole time. And they're
• 1:44:24
  sort of painting the canvas of the ocean.
• 1:44:26
  They're showing us the background
• 1:44:28
  persistent process that happened on in
• 1:44:31
  our tides every day,
• 1:44:34
  seasonal variations every year.
• 1:44:36
  And onto this canvas now researchers can
• 1:44:38
  come to us. Like Cohen was talking about
• 1:44:41
  the bottom lander. Research has been come
• 1:44:43
  to us. We've got this history of how the
• 1:44:45
  ocean is responding in this area.
• 1:44:48
  And then they can plan an experiment with
• 1:44:49
  a lot of knowledge about what they're
• 1:44:51
  about what they might expect. And then
• 1:44:54
  they can find teeny experiment to really
• 1:44:56
  look at things that you wouldn't have
• 1:44:57
  been able to do if you just didn't, you
• 1:44:59
  came and you didn't know what the
• 1:45:01
  environment you're going into.
• 1:45:02
  So we've got the ocean that was Canada
• 1:45:04
  provides us canvas onto which you can
• 1:45:06
  design really specialized and very
• 1:45:08
  rewarding experiments.
• 1:45:11
  And that canvas also includes sort of
• 1:45:13
  climate signals as well. So, so the
• 1:45:16
  longevity of the time series now they're
• 1:45:18
  getting over 20 years. We're one of the
• 1:45:20
  few sites in the world where we have a
• 1:45:22
  long, a long enough record to start to
• 1:45:24
  tease out the differences between the
• 1:45:27
  annual variations and the long term
• 1:45:29
  trends that might be
• 1:45:29
  associated with climate change.
• 1:45:30
  So that canvas has its own
• 1:45:33
  level layer of science as well.
• 1:45:35
  So literally Richard, and I'll just add
• 1:45:38
  one more thing in that.
• 1:45:39
  Onc by by maintaining and operating this
• 1:45:44
  this network, this facility also has the
• 1:45:46
  expertise of how to work in the ocean
• 1:45:48
  environment, right? So when different
• 1:45:50
  scientific partners come from all around
• 1:45:51
  the world to leverage that set of
• 1:45:53
  expertise and to actually do things in
• 1:45:55
  the ocean environment,
• 1:45:56
  which is really not easy, right?
• 1:45:59
  And so that that engineering expertise,
• 1:46:01
  the ANSI expertise is really
• 1:46:04
  a special component of that.
• 1:46:07
  Yeah, I'd like to emphasize that because
• 1:46:11
  I'm one of the scientists who's in a
• 1:46:13
  government organization who who really
• 1:46:15
  leverages that sort of expertise. And so
• 1:46:17
  I often go across the road to ocean
• 1:46:20
  networks, Canada and say, you know, I'm
• 1:46:23
  thinking about this type of experiment.
• 1:46:24
  And that's how these things that's that's
• 1:46:27
  how we generate the ideas for these
• 1:46:30
  platforms and the and the engineers at
• 1:46:33
  ocean networks, Canada have these
• 1:46:35
  capabilities that we just don't even have
• 1:46:37
  in house at our specific department.
• 1:46:51
  And so it's really interesting because you both have like this this experience
• 1:46:53
  and connecting with other researchers
• 1:46:54
  from all different backgrounds. People
• 1:46:57
  who are listening to this podcast are in
• 1:46:59
  different parts of their career.
• 1:47:01
  You know, I have a lot of early career
• 1:47:02
  scientists and of all different
• 1:47:04
  backgrounds as well as, you know,
• 1:47:07
  mid-career and late career, but also
• 1:47:09
  people who are just
• 1:47:10
  interested in the ocean in general.
• 1:47:13
  A researcher or a scientist want to, you
• 1:47:15
  know, look at some of the data and get a
• 1:47:17
  hold of some data. Where do they where do
• 1:47:18
  they begin in terms of like what type of
• 1:47:22
  data that's available, just
• 1:47:23
  the catalog that's available?
• 1:47:25
  How can they sort of like who do they
• 1:47:27
  contact? How does that work? I guess, I
• 1:47:29
  guess, we'll start with you.
• 1:47:32
  Yeah, it's a great question. And that's
• 1:47:34
  what it's all about. Anybody around the
• 1:47:36
  world, and I mean it, can get a hold of
• 1:47:38
  us and ask questions. And we're here.
• 1:47:40
  We're here to support. And so that's, I
• 1:47:43
  think, for questions related to the
• 1:47:47
  science or hypotheses, then the science
• 1:47:50
  team at Ocean Networks Canada is a great
• 1:47:52
  place to start, right?
• 1:47:53
  And we have different disciplinary
• 1:47:55
  experts as part of our group. If you have
• 1:47:57
  questions about geophysics or benthic
• 1:48:01
  ecology or ocean acoustics, and then we
• 1:48:04
  can point you in the right direction. And
• 1:48:05
  we just begin that dialogue. And I know
• 1:48:08
  there's a way to support within that.
• 1:48:11
  And so, yeah, just send us an email, give
• 1:48:13
  us a call. We'd be happy to help and talk
• 1:48:16
  data any day of the week. Fantastic. The
• 1:48:18
  other thing, Ocean Networks Canada has
• 1:48:20
  just done right from the very beginning.
• 1:48:22
  And I don't think this is necessarily
• 1:48:23
  unique, but we took it on very seriously
• 1:48:26
  with to build a comprehensive data
• 1:48:28
  archive at the same time. So at the same
• 1:48:31
  time, we were putting the instruments
• 1:48:32
  out, we were not ignoring the back end,
• 1:48:35
  which is how do you deliver
• 1:48:36
  the data? Yeah, researchers.
• 1:48:38
  And so we have this amazing system called
• 1:48:40
  Oceans 3.0, the data portal, and it has
• 1:48:44
  many, many different components to it.
• 1:48:47
  One of the components is the data
• 1:48:48
  preview. Because the data archive is so
• 1:48:51
  vast and huge, we're certainly up in the
• 1:48:54
  petabytes sort of range of environmental
• 1:48:56
  data, which is quite unique in the world.
• 1:48:58
  We have a data preview section where we
• 1:49:01
  plotted up a number of the core sensors.
• 1:49:04
  So you don't have to go in and ask, you
• 1:49:06
  know, do you too much sort of searching
• 1:49:08
  in the blind, you can just pull up plots
• 1:49:11
  that already exist, have a look, see the
• 1:49:13
  variability, maybe find the data that
• 1:49:16
  you're familiar with or some other data
• 1:49:18
  that you haven't been familiar with, but
• 1:49:20
  you see some interesting signals.
• 1:49:22
  And it gives you an idea, you can come in
• 1:49:24
  and look at that, it's all free, all of
• 1:49:26
  the data is free, both in the previous
• 1:49:27
  sense, and then you
• 1:49:28
  can go and download data.
• 1:49:31
  And one of the things that breaks this
• 1:49:33
  barrier down is, like when I started, to
• 1:49:35
  be an oceanographer, you needed to live
• 1:49:37
  on the coast, you needed maybe to have
• 1:49:39
  access to ships and very expensive
• 1:49:41
  resources. Well, Ocean Network Canada
• 1:49:44
  breaks down that barrier. We have
• 1:49:45
  researchers that can be
• 1:49:46
  completely landlocked.
• 1:49:48
  They don't have to access large expensive
• 1:49:51
  ships, they don't have to become experts
• 1:49:53
  in these data systems or the instruments,
• 1:49:55
  they can come and they can explore the
• 1:49:57
  archive from anywhere
• 1:49:58
  with an internet connection.
• 1:50:00
  They can preview the data, they can then
• 1:50:03
  download, we actually have a plot in
• 1:50:05
  utilities or you see some signal in
• 1:50:07
  there, you want to see if you want to, is
• 1:50:09
  the signal I'm interested in there, you
• 1:50:11
  can play around with the plots if it's
• 1:50:12
  maybe there's a hint that that data, the
• 1:50:14
  signal is in the data,
• 1:50:16
  then you can go and download the data and
• 1:50:18
  do more of further analysis. And that not
• 1:50:21
  only includes the sensors like measuring
• 1:50:23
  temperature and salinity, but the
• 1:50:25
  hydrophone data, the camera data, the
• 1:50:29
  multimedia data as well.
• 1:50:31
  So it's all available, it's all free,
• 1:50:33
  there's no burden, you don't have to pay
• 1:50:36
  to access it. And then like Cohen says,
• 1:50:39
  we have the staff that if you have
• 1:50:41
  questions about what
• 1:50:42
  you're seeing, contact us.
• 1:50:44
  And we've got experts in house that are
• 1:50:47
  familiar with that data stream, they know
• 1:50:49
  how to access it, they can help you get
• 1:50:51
  it. And like Gwyn said, most often you
• 1:50:55
  end up trying to drink from a
• 1:50:57
  fire hose before you know it.
• 1:50:59
  Amazing, thank you so much. You know,
• 1:51:02
  this has been incredible to have all
• 1:51:04
  three of you gentlemen on the podcast to
• 1:51:06
  be able to talk about
• 1:51:06
  these these great discoveries.
• 1:51:08
  I can't tell you how much I want to thank
• 1:51:10
  you. My audience thanks you and just the
• 1:51:12
  work that you've done over the years and
• 1:51:14
  you continue to do in the future. Thank
• 1:51:16
  you so much and being
• 1:51:17
  able to communicate this.
• 1:51:18
  I hope a lot of more scientists are able
• 1:51:21
  to take advantage of the free data and
• 1:51:23
  then these streams of data that come
• 1:51:24
  through. So thank you so much. Really
• 1:51:25
  appreciate you coming on the podcast.
• 1:51:28
  Great to be with you. Yeah, thanks so
• 1:51:30
  much for your time. It was fun. Thank
• 1:51:31
  you, Richard. Thank you Gwyn. Thank you
• 1:51:33
  Cohen for joining us on today's episode
• 1:51:34
  of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast.
• 1:51:36
  This was such a fun episode to go
• 1:51:39
  through. Just imagine being able to set
• 1:51:41
  up a platform of instruments just to know
• 1:51:44
  that it's going to and hope I guess
• 1:51:46
  that's going to get taken and go down a
• 1:51:49
  landslide and discover something
• 1:51:50
  completely new of how
• 1:51:53
  submarine landslides work.
• 1:51:54
  It is amazing to be in science. It is so
• 1:51:57
  wonderful to be curious. I don't think we
• 1:51:59
  really understand or encourage people
• 1:52:02
  enough, especially our kids to be curious
• 1:52:05
  and to go find something
• 1:52:07
  that you just never expect.
• 1:52:09
  And it's kind of a fun thing to do, but
• 1:52:10
  you have to put yourself out there just
• 1:52:12
  like they just like O and C does and his
• 1:52:14
  partners does to make new discoveries and
• 1:52:17
  I think creativity, you know, having the
• 1:52:20
  ocean instrumentation to be able to do
• 1:52:22
  that allows us to have make the
• 1:52:24
  scientific discoveries that
• 1:52:26
  you've just never expected.
• 1:52:28
  And that's what was beautiful about this
• 1:52:30
  episode. So I think I think Richard, I
• 1:52:32
  think Cohen, I think Gwyn for joining us
• 1:52:34
  today and it was such a great opportunity
• 1:52:36
  to speak to leaders in in oceans and
• 1:52:40
  scientific discovery,
• 1:52:41
  especially with the O and C network.
• 1:52:43
  It is absolutely wonderful. If you have
• 1:52:45
  any questions or comments, just let us
• 1:52:47
  know in the YouTube comments below or if
• 1:52:49
  you're listening to this on your favorite
• 1:52:50
  audio podcast, you can go to speak up for
• 1:52:52
  blue.com forward slash
• 1:52:54
  feedback to let me know how you feel.
• 1:52:56
  We can either leave a message or a
• 1:52:58
  voicemail or you can actually text it
• 1:53:00
  through or type it in. That's it for
• 1:53:02
  today's episode. Thank you for watching.
• 1:53:04
  This has been another episode of the how
• 1:53:05
  to protect the ocean podcast. I'm your
• 1:53:07
  host, Andrew Lewin. Have a great day.
• 1:53:09
  We'll talk to you next
• 1:53:09
  time and happy conservation.