Southeast Australia IMOS Node (SEA-IMOS) Mark Baird, Vanessa Lucieer, Daniel Ierodiaconou 17th February 2015

Outline Research highlights

– Gliders in Storm Bay.

– Spirit of Tasmania – Maria Island NRS – Sea level validation

• Opportunities – Extension to

Victorian waters, new opportunities for government / industry collaborations, focus on Bass Strait.

Daniel Ierodiaconou Deakin University

Vanessa Lucieer Univ. of Tasmania

Randall Lee Victoria EPA

Stephen Swearer Melbourne Univ.

Shelf gliders off Storm Bay

18 deployments.

December 2014

November 2014

Juxtaposition of major boundary currents – summer vs. winter.

Modelling and connectivity in the Bass Strait – Victorian coast region.

SOOP - Spirit of Tasmania.

Mersy Plume Frequency and extent of outflow to Bass Strait

SOOP - Spirit of Tasmania.

• IMOS supports 1 of the 3 absolute calibration sites around the globe for the cal/val of satellite altimetry sea surface height data (TOPEX/Poseidon, Jason-1, and OSTM/Jason-2 missions).

• Combines moorings (P,T,S,U,V), GPS buoys, tide gauges, and model output to assess absolute bias (i.e. error in the mean) and bias drift (i.e. error in the trend).

• Provides a highly valued contribution from Australia to the international community primarily through the Ocean Surface Topography Science Team (NASA/CNES), and now the Sentinel-3 Validation Team (ESA).

IMOS SRS – Satellite Altimeter Cal/Val • Watson (UTAS), Church (CSIRO), Legresy (CSIRO) +

CSIRO Coastal Moorings Team.

• Cal/val data such as that from Bass Strait and Storm Bay play an important role in the mission science teams – these data help assess the evolution of systematic error in altimeter sea surface height.

IMOS SRS – Satellite Altimeter Cal/Val

• Precision altimetry has been around ~22 years – we are still learning new things…

• Sustained in situ cal/val is a key component of each mission - we aim to maintain the long term time series from Bass Strait and optimise our other contribution for the launch of Jason-3 (2015), Sentinel-3A (2015), Sentinel-3B (2017).

• In situ data is available on the IMOS portal / sea level data is on the CSIRO website.

• Other IMOS cal/val work that uses the tide gauge network to assess error in the global mean sea level (GMSL) trend is under revision with Nature Climate Change.

IMOS SRS – Satellite Altimeter Cal/Val

Existing IMOS arrays in Victoria

Off Werribee

Acoustic receiver array- Port Phillip Bay Snapper stock assessment (DEPI Fisheries) – recreational commercial fisheries. Seven Gill Sharks (UTAS, JCU, DEPI Fisheries) Longevity of budget depends on further co-investment. • Acoustic receiver array- Corner Inlet • Great White Sharks (CSIRO)

Acoustic curtains off eastern Tasmania • update on data outputs in the coming year.

Zooplankton at Maria Island NRS

Decline Spring/autumn bloom

Aseasonal

Warming changes zooplankton community at Maria

Updated from Johnson et al. (2011)

IMAS Honours project: Drivers of Eastern Australia zooplankton community composition (using NRS data)

(Data from Paige Kelly)

Evidence for increasing similarity between Port Hacking (PH) and Maria Island (MI) zooplankton communities

Months compared Annual similarity (%) (PH/MI) 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 February/March - - 29.87 35.62 40.42 March/April 22.57 35.74 51.2 29.07 - June/July 24.02 22.3 - 40.75 - August/September 20.46 25.74 30.32 29.57 45.87

Variation in ‘warm water’ species at Maria NRS

Long term (4 years) monitoring sites for representative benthic reef sites (Marine Biodiversity Hub, Long Term Reef Monitoring, Neville Barrett) Photo mosaics and Caatami classification on portal.

Long term monitoring opportunities • Gap in observations in Bass Strait (BS) and long time

series data collections to measure change in benthic and pelagic ecosystems

-Prioritisation of BS AUV monitoring sites to compliment existing coverage -Build on State Initiatives for Benthic and pelagic habitats

IMOS Portal Highlights • Reef Life Survey (RLS) global reef fish dataset

[Prof. Graeme Edgar] 2006-2013

New opportunities for SEA-IMOS • The importance of Bass Strait

– High diversity (20) and greatest biomass (20.6 M individuals) of seabird populations in Australian waters.

– High diversity and abundance of marine mammals.

– Large industry use - oil and gas, shipping, aquaculture.

– Commonwealth and State marine reserves. – Large exchange of shelf and open ocean

waters – implications for carbon, nutrient, freshwater fluxes.

• Knowledge gaps for Bass Strait – Question as to whether on-going

observations provide long term data to manage these resources.

– Lack of integrated studies – co-ordinated observations drive multi-disciplinary science.

Australian fur seals

foraging intensity

Effect of environmental variability Bass Strait Australian fur seals example

• 95 individuals (1998-2012) – 83% of dives for benthic forage – 41% of time spent diving

• Complex environmental effects – spring conditions 2 y lag

• survival/recruitment of fish

– current winter conditions • distribution of prey • growth of prey (cephalopods)

(Hoskins et al in review)

Stronger easterlies in

spring, working less

Colder SST, working less

Stronger easterlies in winter, working

more

Stronger SOI, working more

Seals, Gannets, Penguin tracks- Bass Strait - Courtesy John Arnould

Tooling existing animal tracking research- i.e. CTDS

ATTAMMS BIOLOGGING-SEAIMOS

Integrating theme: connectivity • Meets stakeholders needs

– Containment dispersal. – Larval dispersal. – Invasive species. – Integrity and impact on marine reserves.

Observations. Physical (currents, water masses), chemical (oxygen and carbon chemistry) and biological (diversity assessment, bio-logging) Interchangeable use of different observations types if integrated studies are initiated (i.e. Dispersal gives insights into currents and vice versa).

Expanding the SEA-IMOS community • Oil and gas - Otway (Origin) and Gippsland

(ESSO) – observe waves and currents on platforms.

• Coastal observing – Port Philip Bay (25+ years) and Derwent well established programs.

• Wonthaggi desalination plant – offshore salinity observation.

• Victoria EPA – physical and biogeochemical • University research community – Monash,

Melbourne, Latrobe, Deakin, Swinburne, UTAS

Next steps.

• Invitation to contribute .... • SEA-IMOS Node plan being developed –

priorities include those of TasIMOS (EAC warming etc.) and new opportunities in Victorian waters

• SEA-IMOS Science Day / Stakeholder in Melbourne engage stakeholders and discussion of draft node plan.

• AMSA in Geelong – July 2015.

IMOS is a national research infrastructure, supported by Australian Govern It is led by University of Tasmania in partnership with the Australian marine and climate science community.

The Operators of the IMOS infrastructure are:

www.imos.org.au

Highlights: Ongoing data collection

IMOS Projects Ongoing Organisation State

Chondrichthyan monitoring of south-east Australia Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies TASMANIA

Seven Gill tracking in Coastal Tasmania Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies

TASMANIA

Sevengill Shark tracking in Victoria Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies TASMANIA

OTN Maria & Flinders Island Lines Tasmania Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies TASMANIA

AATAMS Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies TASMANIA

Bluefin tuna Great Australian Bight CSIRO TASMANIA

Animal Tagging Bluefin Tuna WA CSIRO TASMANIA

eMII-IMOS University of Tasmania TASMANIA

Tracking Snapper in Port Phillip Bay, VIC Fisheries Snapper - Port Phillip Bay,

Fisheries Victoria (Fisheries Research Branch)

VICTORIA

Sevengill Shark tracking in Victoria Fisheries Victoria (Fisheries Research Branch)

VICTORIA

Gummy shark and Southern fiddler ray Monash University VICTORIA

ARI - Glenelg River Arthur Rylah Institute for Environmental Research

VICTORIA

IMOS Portal Highlights • Reef Life Survey (RLS) global reef fish dataset

[Prof. Graeme Edgar] 2006-2013

South Eastern Australia

We are now SEA-IMOS

Long term absolute altimetry calibration from the Bass Strait sites.

IMOS SRS-Alt C. Watson1, J. Church2 + Beardsley1, Legresy2 and mooring team2

1 Univ Tasmania ; 2 CSIRO

- One of the 3 absolute calibration sites around the globe for reference satellite missions (the southern hemisphere one)

- (Topex/Poseidon, Jason-1, Jason-2) + to be launched 2015 : Jason-3 and the new Sentinel-3A - Combines Moorings (P,T,S,U,V), GPS buoys calibration, reference

Tide gauges, etc.., accurate models to tie up (developing interaction with ocean models in the frame of new satellites).

- Provides visibility of and contribution from Australia in the international community through the Ocean Surface Topography

-Perspective : - Maintain a continuous and high quality - Optimize and improve for : - Jason-3 (2015) - Sentinel-3A (2015), - Sentinel-3B (2017) - In situ data available on the IMOS porta - Sea level data available on CSIRO web - IPCC http://www.climatechange2013.or

Understanding shared stocks

• Paul Hamer to provide • slide about connections between bays and

coast/shelf - relative use of the two ecotypes by key species?? movements across state boundaries

The Australian Animal Tagging and Monitoring System (AATAMS) has established a national telemetry network for the investigation of marine animal movement