The PacIOOS team wishes you and your family a happy, healthy, and restful holiday season as 2020 comes to a close.

Our relationships with you—our partners, stakeholders, and users—are at the core of our program. We are grateful that these strong ties have helped us to pivot and maneuver through these uncertain and challenging times. Because of you, we were able to continue fulfilling our mission.

We developed our 5-year Proposal and a 10-year Outlook, charting PacIOOS’ future direction and identifying priority projects and collaborations. Rejuvenated and inspired by the 350+ comments received, we greatly appreciate your thoughtful input and feedback articulating your coastal and ocean observing needs.

Maybe now more than ever, we are enthusiastically looking forward to what 2021 and the coming years have in store for our program. We will continue to strive to address stakeholder needs with a more balanced observing system throughout the region. One exciting milestone we are already working on is an increase in the number of wave buoy locations throughout Micronesia.

With your support, partnership, and commitment, we are eager to improve, expand, and evolve ocean observing throughout the most beautiful region, the Pacific Islands.

Mahalo, Fa’afetai, Kommol, Kulo, Kalanghan, Kinisou, Kammagar, Sulang, Si Yu’us ma’ase!
Your PacIOOS Team
Since we spent many, many hours in online meetings and video conferences, below are a few snapshots from our year—in 2020 Zoom-Style!
From left to right, top to bottom:

  • In January, PacIOOS held an in-person ocean observing capacity building workshop in Pohnpei, Federated States of Micronesia, with more than 30 participants representing various sectors.
  • In partnership with regional partners, PacIOOS continues to make large biological datasets publicly available, such as coral reef, fish and invertebrate monitoring data. Data were collected in the Republic of the Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Hawaiian and Mariana Islands, American Samoa, and the Pacific Remote Island Areas.
  • Despite COVID-related travel restrictions, the PacIOOS wave buoy off Ritidian Point, Guam, was successfully redeployed by local partners. [Photo credit: Michael Genereux]
  • The Ebiil Society in Palau is currently participating in the PacIOOS Water Quality Sensor Partnership Program. The nearshore sensor helps to monitor sediment run-off to assess the success of revegetation efforts.
  • Citizen scientists collected valuable photo documentation of wave run-up events along West Maui. PacIOOS is developing a high-resolution wave run-up forecast for West Maui and the photos are a crucial component to ground-truth the model. The forecast will be released in early 2021. [Photo credit: Don McLeish]
  • The National Park of American Samoa utilizes PacIOOS wave buoy data to plan for safe field operations. The National Park is also a close partner of PacIOOS, assisting in the maintenance of the Aunu'u wave buoy and the Fagatele Bay ocean acidification monitoring station. [Photo credit: Bert Fuiava]
  • PacIOOS developed new, high-resolution wave forecasts for Saipan, Tinian, Aguijan and Rota (not shown in image above) in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, providing 5-day forecasts of wave height, direction, and period.
  • Fishermen from Hawai‘i Island are utilizing PacIOOS currents forecast to plan for fishing trips, helping to determine possible fish aggregation areas of ‘ōpelu. [Photo credit: Alson Kajikawa]
  • PacIOOS got re-certified by U.S. IOOS, meaning that PacIOOS provides high-quality observations that meet National-level standards. In the re-certification process, existing practices and protocols are reviewed to ensure required standards are met.