Within it's role as provider of scientific advice on the exploitation and stewardship of the marine ecosystem and resources in the North Atlantic, ICES is developing integrated ecosystem advice on a regional level. This advice, relevant to managers, policy developers, and interested stakeholders will include ecosystem overviews describing the state of the region.
Regular inputs of monitoring information on the oceanography and hydrology of the regions will be required for this process. Variables such as sea temperature, nutrients, oxygen depletions, salinity spring bloom, and copepods will be taken into account to provide integrated ecosystem assessments.
A call for expressions of interest launched in May in providing Operational Oceanographic Products and Services (OOPS) to ICES advisory process was aimed at ICES expert groups, as well as the MyOcean and satellite earth observation community.
The regions of interest are:
Western Atlantic
- Labrador Sea
- Newfoundland Shelf
- Scotian Shelf
- Georges Bank
- Gulf of Maine
- Middle Atlantic Bight
Eastern Atlantic
- Baltic Sea
- Greater North Sea
- Norwegian Sea
- Barents Sea
- Celtic Seas
- Bay of Biscay and Atlantic Iberian waters
ICES Ecosystem Professional Officer Mark Dickey-Collas is excited to find a way to bring the producers of OOPS
together with the users. "This call was the first step towards creating an
operational mechanism for the delivery of products directly to the
users".
