Cimers researchers develop acoustic tools, technologies and services that can be used to address a wide variety of NOAA missions and research priorities

This $100,000 Cooperative Agreement award from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) under the Cooperative Institute (Inter-Agency Funded Activities) program (CFDA 11.405) supports Oregon State University's (OSU) Center for Integrative Marine Ecosystem Research (CIMERS) in developing acoustic tools, technologies and services to address a wide variety of NOAA's research priorities.

The key objectives are to maintain and enhance the Ocean Noise Reference Station Network (ONRSN), a collaborative passive acoustic monitoring system across U.S. territorial waters. CIMERS acoustics personnel will focus on data management, analyses, calibration, and transfer to the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) repository to ensure the long-term value of the ONRSN data streams. This work will advance ocean sound collection technologies, data science applications in ocean monitoring, and studies on the biological impacts of changing ocean sound environments on protected species.

Using autonomous moored hydrophones, mobile platforms such as ocean gliders and floats equipped with acoustic sensors. Cimers proposes to address the following NOAA/pmel research objectives: the ocean noise reference station network (ONRSN) is a unique partnership between NOAA-pmel, nmfs, NOS sanctuaries and the national park service to build a unique passive acoustic observing system of moored hydrophones deployed across U.S. Territorial waters, from the arctic to the tropics. The ONRSN is at 9 years of recording continuous underwater acoustic data near major ports, marine parks and sanctuaries, and serves as a vital research platform for advancing ocean sound collection technologies, applications of novel data science tools in ocean monitoring, studies of the biological impacts of changing ocean sound environments on protected species, among others. The goal is to make the ONRSN data to be as widely disseminated and as broadly impactful as possible in informing the next generation of ocean sound research including detection and attribution of long-term trends in ocean noise. For the planned project, OSU-cimers acoustics personnel who have been directly engaged in the development, testing and deployment of the ONRSN will work to ensure the longterm value of the networks data streams. Working in close collaboration with NOAA researchers, cimers research associate haver and assistant professor senior research sremba will focus on data management and analyses. IT research specialist kahn and faculty research assistant roche will lead work on data calibration and sending of data to the navy for review, and subsequent transfer to the ncei data repository. Haver will also participate in ncei data workshops to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of data workflows for acoustic data streams.