Any chance you'll be sailing in the icy reaches of the North Atlantic on Summer Sailstice 2014? Or Chesapeake Bay? Or the Marshall Islands? Or anywhere on the salty waters of this globe? The photo shows test samples at Palmer Station, Antartica on the Southern hemisphere summer solstice of 2013 and scientists are looking for similar ocean samples on the summer solstice in June 2014.
A global body of ocean biologists is reaching out to the sailing community to enlist sailing citizen scientists who would like to help provide data for the Ocean Sampling Day project which will take place on Summer Sailstice, June 21, 2014! Enjoyment of the ocean combined with concern for the ocean compels us to support this project.
The project will to establish a baseline of data, all collected on the same day, from multiple points across the oceans. Sailors can help by acquiring test kits, collecting data and transmitting the information with a smart phone app to the OSD project. As they describe the project: Ocean Sampling Day is a project of the Micro B3 consortium, an EU funded project working at the intersection of marine microbial biodiversity, bioinformatics and biotechnology. Also see http://www.oceansamplingday.org. It can sound pretty technical but, as we've tuned into their communications, we've begun to learn a bit and are interested in learning more. You can too. Or, maybe you are a marine biologist sailor who can help us all contribute and learn more? Either way, we're encouraging interested salt water sailors ('fraid this won't work on fresh water bodies of water)to connect with the OSD project and make your contribution to ocean science.
One of the great things we love about Summer Sailstice is connecting sailors around the world and it's one of the reasons we're attracted to the OSD project. Check out the map of their beta test sampling sites:
The data sailing citizen scientists collect will appear here! Sign up to make sure you can help gain the human race with their understanding of the world's oceans.
You will be helping scientists from all over the world who are collaborating to gather and understand all this data. They have been developing the information and testing the process so that we've been copied on emails such as: ' We have sampled this morning in the Bay of Villefranche, a raining day but quite warm for start winter season 11° C. Happy Solstice and happy Christmas from OSD Villefranche team!
Ornella, Franck, Laure et Maria Luiza.
26 December 2013
From Palmer Station Antartica to Bay of Villefranche to the harbor, bay, ocean where you will be sailing next June 21st ocean scientists are hoping you will be able to help collect valuable information to support further ocean science.
If you are interested in participating in this project please email: Julia Schnetzer (jschnetz@mpi-bremen.de) The project is an EU funded project but includes scientists all around the world. Since the stars have aligned such that Ocean Sampling Day occurs on Summer Sailstice we'd like to see what we can do to help support the project. If there is a Summer Sailstice participant out there who'd like to act as a liaison for this project please get in touch with john@summersailstice.com so that we can work together to further this effort.
Please get in touch with Julia and let us know what we can all do to help this be a successful ocean science effort.
For more information visit:
http://oceansamplingday.blogspot.com/
http://mb3is.megx.net/osd-app/samples
More about OSD: The Ocean Sampling Day (OSD) is a simultaneous sampling campaign of the world’s oceans and will take place on the summer solstice (June 21st) in the year 2014. These cumulative samples, related in time, space and environmental parameters, will provide insights into fundamental rules describing microbial diversity and function and will contribute to the blue economy through the identification of novel, ocean-derived biotechnologies. We expect that these data will provide a reference data set for generations of experiments to follow in the coming decade. It could also function as starting point for regularly coordinated future OSDs.
This may not look like an ocean research vessel but on June 21, 2014 it could be. Contact Julia Schnetzer (jschnetz@mpi-bremen.de) to help out.
