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Tracking climate change impacts on the ocean via online portal

Photo Credit: David Lawrey/University of Technology Sydney

Climate change effects and impacts on the ocean is often seen through its larger inhabitants such as the scrawny polar bears, bleached corals, and dwindling catch in fishing nets.

But similarly, microscopic marine organisms play a critical role in the biosphere. Marine microbes serve as the foundational building block of the underwater food-web.

More importantly, it is estimated that marine microbes consume almost 50% of the Earth’s carbon dioxide through the process of photosynthesis.

Unfortunately, because it is invisible to the naked eye, the health and movement of marine microbes that drift as part of the plankton is difficult to picture, even for scientists, more so for everyday citizens.

Visualising the range of conditions that drifting marine microbes encounter is a challenge that brought together a group of expert scientists and visual designers.

Online citizen science project

According to a recent press release, they worked together to create the online citizen science project called Adrift.

Adrift is a portal that connects the public with the lives of microscopic marine microbes as they are propelled around the globe by ocean currents, with temperature and nutrient availability changing along the way.

The lead researcher and biological oceanographer from the University of Technology Sydney described Adrift as a way to engage a diversity of participants.

These participants include those who may not have technical or scientific expertise.

People should be given the chance to view the conditions that microbes experience in different parts of the ocean.

Observing microbes

This will provide clues to their capacity to adapt to the relatively fast pace of human-induced changes in ocean conditions.

As such, microbes get to experience diverse conditions along their paths when they are drifting in different surface currents.

Since scientists cannot be in the ocean to look at the plankton in all these places, a method to visualise their experience based on ocean simulations was created.

Adrift is unique in the way that it visually maps and summarises the specific conditions for plankton in any given location in the ocean.

It allows citizen scientists to virtually ‘drop’ microbes into the global ocean.

What can the people learn?

The data produced by participants includes the geographic path travelled as well as variations in temperature and nutrients experienced by the microbes.

Participants can learn about, map and record these variations using visual tools, thereby enabling researchers to areas of the ocean where real-life microbes are experiencing the most extreme changes along their drift paths.

This platform is a great entry point for students and citizens to get involved and start to understand the challenges of living in the ocean today.

Government support

The project is funded by the Inspiring Australia: Science engagement in Australia initiative of the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science.

This initiative contributes to the government’s vision to engage all Australians with science.

Meanwhile, project partners include the Australian Bureau of Meteorology and the Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS).

IMOS is a national collaborative research infrastructure, supported by Australian Government. It is operated by a consortium of institutions as an unincorporated joint venture.

PARTNER

Qlik’s vision is a data-literate world, where everyone can use data and analytics to improve decision-making and solve their most challenging problems. A private company, Qlik offers real-time data integration and analytics solutions, powered by Qlik Cloud, to close the gaps between data, insights and action. By transforming data into Active Intelligence, businesses can drive better decisions, improve revenue and profitability, and optimize customer relationships. Qlik serves more than 38,000 active customers in over 100 countries.

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CTC Global Singapore, a premier end-to-end IT solutions provider, is a fully owned subsidiary of ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation (CTC) and ITOCHU Corporation.

Since 1972, CTC has established itself as one of the country’s top IT solutions providers. With 50 years of experience, headed by an experienced management team and staffed by over 200 qualified IT professionals, we support organizations with integrated IT solutions expertise in Autonomous IT, Cyber Security, Digital Transformation, Enterprise Cloud Infrastructure, Workplace Modernization and Professional Services.

Well-known for our strengths in system integration and consultation, CTC Global proves to be the preferred IT outsourcing destination for organizations all over Singapore today.

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Planview has one mission: to build the future of connected work. Our solutions enable organizations to connect the business from ideas to impact, empowering companies to accelerate the achievement of what matters most. Planview’s full spectrum of Portfolio Management and Work Management solutions creates an organizational focus on the strategic outcomes that matter and empowers teams to deliver their best work, no matter how they work. The comprehensive Planview platform and enterprise success model enables customers to deliver innovative, competitive products, services, and customer experiences. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, with locations around the world, Planview has more than 1,300 employees supporting 4,500 customers and 2.6 million users worldwide. For more information, visit www.planview.com.

SUPPORTING ORGANISATION

SIRIM is a premier industrial research and technology organisation in Malaysia, wholly-owned by the Minister​ of Finance Incorporated. With over forty years of experience and expertise, SIRIM is mandated as the machinery for research and technology development, and the national champion of quality. SIRIM has always played a major role in the development of the country’s private sector. By tapping into our expertise and knowledge base, we focus on developing new technologies and improvements in the manufacturing, technology and services sectors. We nurture Small Medium Enterprises (SME) growth with solutions for technology penetration and upgrading, making it an ideal technology partner for SMEs.

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HashiCorp provides infrastructure automation software for multi-cloud environments, enabling enterprises to unlock a common cloud operating model to provision, secure, connect, and run any application on any infrastructure. HashiCorp tools allow organizations to deliver applications faster by helping enterprises transition from manual processes and ITIL practices to self-service automation and DevOps practices. 

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IBM is a leading global hybrid cloud and AI, and business services provider. We help clients in more than 175 countries capitalize on insights from their data, streamline business processes, reduce costs and gain the competitive edge in their industries. Nearly 3,000 government and corporate entities in critical infrastructure areas such as financial services, telecommunications and healthcare rely on IBM’s hybrid cloud platform and Red Hat OpenShift to affect their digital transformations quickly, efficiently and securely. IBM’s breakthrough innovations in AI, quantum computing, industry-specific cloud solutions and business services deliver open and flexible options to our clients. All of this is backed by IBM’s legendary commitment to trust, transparency, responsibility, inclusivity and service.

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