WASHINGTON — Major investments are needed for core research in ocean science and to upgrade and replace infrastructure to support basic and applied research in ocean studies, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. The research is needed to understand how greater access to the Arctic will challenge U.S. national security, how changes in the health of ocean ecosystems could affect fisheries, and how the ocean contributes to extreme weather events.    

The report provides advice to the National Science Foundation on how to reinvigorate U.S. leadership in ocean research. Focusing investments on research, infrastructure, and the ocean studies workforce will help meet national and global challenges in the coming decade and help enhance national security, scientific leadership, and economic competitiveness in support of a thriving U.S. blue economy.                             

“Understanding and anticipating change in the ocean, and how it will affect marine ecosystems and humans, has never been more urgent,” said H. Tuba Özkan-Haller, dean and professor at Oregon State University’s College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences, and co-chair of the committee that wrote the report. “Our report lays out a challenge for the research community to establish a new paradigm for ocean research that will provide forecasts to save lives and sustain livelihoods in the next decade.”  

According to the report, accelerating U.S. scientific progress in understanding and forecasting ocean processes is reliant on sustained support for basic research across ocean studies and reinvestment in ocean science infrastructure. The report also highlights that it will require an integrated approach to research that takes full advantage of emerging technologies and methods such as artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques; creative uses of existing underwater infrastructure for research; and gaining new resources and building strategic partnerships among federal and state agencies, industry, academia, and other interest holders.   

“Transdisciplinary mindsets, practices, and skill sets — including collaboration with scientists in other disciplines — will be key for this next decade of ocean science,” said committee co-chair James A. Yoder, dean emeritus at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and professor emeritus at the University of Rhode Island. “This will require a research community that leverages both intellectual and financial resources to meet the urgent environmental, security, and societal needs of this time.”  

The committee recommended continued funding for core infrastructure supported by the NSF Division of Ocean Sciences, and it also emphasized the importance of investment in new and emerging observational technologies and cyberinfrastructure. The report points out that research vessel capacity within the U.S. Academic Research Feet will be significantly reduced in the coming decade; replacements with comparable or better capability are necessary to meet the challenges of the next decade and beyond. NSF should also take action to regain U.S. leadership in scientific ocean drilling on a global stage, which was the subject of an interim report for this project published in March 2024.

The report focuses on three themes of ocean research important for improving forecasts of ocean processes:

• Ocean and Climate: The ocean presently absorbs 90 percent of the heat and roughly 30 percent of the carbon that result from global emissions of greenhouse gases. Any decline in these rates of uptake would accelerate increases in atmospheric temperature and carbon dioxide levels, with the potential for impacts on processes such as hurricane development and intensity, ice sheet stability, and ocean chemistry. Research in this area includes developing new approaches to observe heat transport, improving predictions of marine ice sheet instability, and developing ways to quantify variability in the carbon cycle.

• Ecosystem Resilience: Fundamental changes in Earth and ocean systems are resulting in shifts to ecosystems that may negatively impact local and global communities that depend on them. Forecasting these ecosystem shifts, and their causes, could provide the early warning needed to enhance communities’ ability to adapt to these ecosystem changes. Research in this area includes determining the effects of warming, acidification, and de-oxygenation on the productivity of ocean ecosystems, and developing tools for rapid species diversity measurements.

• Extreme Events: The ocean contributes to earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, storm surges, and flooding that directly impact coastal communities, and increased precipitation and heat waves that affect both coastal and inland communities. Extreme events can impact major investments such as port facilities, commercial fishing fleets, and national defense infrastructure. Improving the ability to observe, understand, and forecast extreme events is critical. Research in this area includes improving early-warning systems of geohazards and increasing the ability to predict global weather extremes and apply these forecasts to inform urban planning, agricultural, and forestry practices. 

• Ocean and Climate: The ocean presently absorbs 90 percent of the heat and roughly 30 percent of the carbon that result from global emissions of greenhouse gases. Any decline in these rates of uptake would accelerate increases in atmospheric temperature and carbon dioxide levels, with the potential for impacts on processes such as hurricane development and intensity, ice sheet stability, and ocean chemistry. Research in this area includes developing new approaches to observe heat transport, improving predictions of marine ice sheet instability, and developing ways to quantify variability in the carbon cycle.

• Ecosystem Resilience: Fundamental changes in Earth and ocean systems are resulting in shifts to ecosystems that may negatively impact local and global communities that depend on them. Forecasting these ecosystem shifts, and their causes, could provide the early warning needed to enhance communities’ ability to adapt to these ecosystem changes. Research in this area includes determining the effects of warming, acidification, and de-oxygenation on the productivity of ocean ecosystems, and developing tools for rapid species diversity measurements.

• Extreme Events: The ocean contributes to earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, storm surges, and flooding that directly impact coastal communities, and increased precipitation and heat waves that affect both coastal and inland communities. Extreme events can impact major investments such as port facilities, commercial fishing fleets, and national defense infrastructure. Improving the ability to observe, understand, and forecast extreme events is critical. Research in this area includes improving early-warning systems of geohazards and increasing the ability to predict global weather extremes and apply these forecasts to inform urban planning, agricultural, and forestry practices. 

The study — undertaken by the Committee on the 2025-2035 Decadal Survey of Ocean Sciences for the National Science Foundation — was sponsored by the National Science Foundation.   The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine are private, nonprofit institutions that provide independent, objective analysis and advice to the nation to solve complex problems and inform public policy decisions related to science, engineering, and medicine. They operate under an 1863 congressional charter to the National Academy of Sciences, signed by President Lincoln. 

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