A sustained ocean observing system in the Indian Ocean for climate related scientific knowledge and societal needs

© The Author(s), 2019. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Hermes, J. C., Masumoto, Y., Beal, L. M., Roxy, M. K., Vialard, J., Andres, M., Annamalai, H., Behera, S., D'Adamo, N., Doi, T., Peng, M., Han, W., Hardman-Mountford, N., Hendon, H., Hood, R., Kido, S., Lee, C., Lees, T., Lengaigne, M., Li, J., Lumpkin, R., Navaneeth, K. N., Milligan, B., McPhaden, M. J., Ravichandran, M., Shinoda, T., Singh, A., Sloyan, B., Strutton, P. G., Subramanian, A. C., Thurston, S., Tozuka, T., Ummenhofer, C. C., Unnikrishnan, A. S., Venkatesan, R., Wang, D., Wiggert, J., Yu, L., & Yu, W. (2019). A sustained ocean observing system in the Indian Ocean for climate related scientific knowledge and societal needs. Frontiers in Marine Science, 6, (2019): 355, doi: 10.3389/fmars.2019.00355.The Indian Ocean is warming faster than any of the global oceans and its climate is uniquely driven by the presence of a landmass at low latitudes, which causes monsoonal winds and reversing currents. The food, water, and energy security in the Indian Ocean rim countries and islands are intrinsically tied to its climate, with marine environmental goods and services, as well as trade within the basin, underpinning their economies. Hence, there are a range of societal needs for Indian Ocean observation arising from the influence of regional phenomena and climate change on, for instance, marine ecosystems, monsoon rains, and sea-level. The Indian Ocean Observing System (IndOOS), is a sustained observing system that monitors basin-scale ocean-atmosphere conditions, while providing flexibility in terms of emerging technologies and scientificand societal needs, and a framework for more regional and coastal monitoring. This paper reviews the societal and scientific motivations, current status, and future directions of IndOOS, while also discussing the need for enhanced coastal, shelf, and regional observations. The challenges of sustainability and implementation are also addressed, including capacity building, best practices, and integration of resources. The utility of IndOOS ultimately depends on the identification of, and engagement with, end-users and decision-makers and on the practical accessibility and transparency of data for a range of products and for decision-making processes. Therefore we highlight current progress, issues and challenges related to end user engagement with IndOOS, as well as the needs of the data assimilation and modeling communities. Knowledge of the status of the Indian Ocean climate and ecosystems and predictability of its future, depends on a wide range of socio-economic and environmental data, a significant part of which is provided by IndOOS.This work was supported by the PMEL contribution no. 4934

A synthesis of three decades of socio-ecological change in False Bay, South Africa: setting the scene for multidisciplinary research and management

Over the past three decades, marine resource management has shifted conceptually from top-down sectoral approaches towards the more systems-oriented multi-stakeholder frameworks of integrated coastal management and ecosystem-based conservation. However, the successful implementation of such frameworks is commonly hindered by a lack of cross-disciplinary knowledge transfer, especially between natural and social sciences. This review represents a holistic synthesis of three decades of change in the oceanography, biology and human dimension of False Bay, South Africa. The productivity of marine life in this bay and its close vicinity to the steadily growing metropolis of Cape Town have led to its socio-economic significance throughout history. Considerable research has highlighted shifts driven by climate change, human population growth, serial overfishing, and coastal development. Upwelling-inducing winds have increased in the region, leading to cooling and likely to nutrient enrichment of the bay. Subsequently the distributions of key components of the marine ecosystem have shifted eastward, including kelp, rock lobsters, seabirds, pelagic fish, and several alien invasive species. Increasing sea level and exposure to storm surges contribute to coastal erosion of the sandy shorelines in the bay, causing losses in coastal infrastructure and posing risk to coastal developments. Since the 1980s, the human population of Cape Town has doubled, and with it pollution has amplified. Overfishing has led to drastic declines in the catches of numerous commercially and recreationally targeted fish, and illegal fishing is widespread. The tourism value of the bay contributes substantially to the country’s economy, and whale watching, shark-cage diving and water sports have become important sources of revenue. Compliance with fisheries and environmental regulations would benefit from a systems-oriented approach whereby coastal systems are managed holistically, embracing both social and ecological goals. In this context, we synthesize knowledge and provide recommendations for multidisciplinary research and monitoring to achieve a better balance between developmental and environmental agendas.https://www.elementascience.orgam2020Mammal Research Institut

Cardiovascular disease, chronic kidney disease, and diabetes mortality burden of cardiometabolic risk factors from 1980 to 2010: A comparative risk assessment

Background: High blood pressure, blood glucose, serum cholesterol, and BMI are risk factors for cardiovascular diseases and some of these factors also increase the risk of chronic kidney disease and diabetes. We estimated mortality from cardiovascular diseases, chronic kidney disease, and diabetes that was attributable to these four cardiometabolic risk factors for all countries and regions from 1980 to 2010. Methods: We used data for exposure to risk factors by country, age group, and sex from pooled analyses of population-based health surveys. We obtained relative risks for the effects of risk factors on cause-specific mortality from meta-analyses of large prospective studies. We calculated the population attributable fractions for each risk factor alone, and for the combination of all risk factors, accounting for multicausality and for mediation of the effects of BMI by the other three risks. We calculated attributable deaths by multiplying the cause-specific population attributable fractions by the number of disease-specific deaths. We obtained cause-specific mortality from the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors 2010 Study. We propagated the uncertainties of all the inputs to the final estimates. Findings: In 2010, high blood pressure was the leading risk factor for deaths due to cardiovascular diseases, chronic kidney disease, and diabetes in every region, causing more than 40% of worldwide deaths from these diseases; high BMI and glucose were each responsible for about 15% of deaths, and high cholesterol for more than 10%. After accounting for multicausality, 63% (10·8 million deaths, 95% CI 10·1-11·5) of deaths from these diseases in 2010 were attributable to the combined effect of these four metabolic risk factors, compared with 67% (7·1 million deaths, 6·6-7·6) in 1980. The mortality burden of high BMI and glucose nearly doubled from 1980 to 2010. At the country level, age-standardised death rates from these diseases attributable to the combined effects of these four risk factors surpassed 925 deaths per 100 000 for men in Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Mongolia, but were less than 130 deaths per 100 000 for women and less than 200 for men in some high-income countries including Australia, Canada, France, Japan, the Netherlands, Singapore, South Korea, and Spain. Interpretation: The salient features of the cardiometabolic disease and risk factor epidemic at the beginning of the 21st century are high blood pressure and an increasing effect of obesity and diabetes. The mortality burden of cardiometabolic risk factors has shifted from high-income to low-income and middle-income countries. Lowering cardiometabolic risks through dietary, behavioural, and pharmacological interventions should be a part of the global response to non-communicable diseases. Funding: UK Medical Research Council, US National Institutes of Health. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd

Evolving and sustaining ocean best practices and standards for the next decade

The oceans play a key role in global issues such as climate change, food security, and human health. Given their vast dimensions and internal complexity, efficient monitoring and predicting of the planet’s ocean must be a collaborative effort of both regional and global scale. A first and foremost requirement for such collaborative ocean observing is the need to follow well-defined and reproducible methods across activities: from strategies for structuring observing systems, sensor deployment and usage, and the generation of data and information products, to ethical and governance aspects when executing ocean observing. To meet the urgent, planet-wide challenges we face, methods across all aspects of ocean observing should be broadly adopted by the ocean community and, where appropriate, should evolve into “Ocean Best Practices.” While many groups have created best practices, they are scattered across the Web or buried in local repositories and many have yet to be digitized. To reduce this fragmentation, we introduce a new open access, permanent, digital repository of best practices documentation (oceanbestpractices.org) that is part of the Ocean Best Practices System (OBPS). The new OBPS provides an opportunity space for the centralized and coordinated improvement of ocean observing methods. The OBPS repository employs user-friendly software to significantly improve discovery and access to methods. The software includes advanced semantic technologies for search capabilities to enhance repository operations. In addition to the repository, the OBPS also includes a peer reviewed journal research topic, a forum for community discussion and a training activity for use of best practices. Together, these components serve to realize a core objective of the OBPS, which is to enable the ocean community to create superior methods for every activity in ocean observing from research to operations to applications that are agreed upon and broadly adopted across communities. Using selected ocean observing examples, we show how the OBPS supports this objective. This paper lays out a future vision of ocean best practices and how OBPS will contribute to improving ocean observing in the decade to come

The evolving SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in Africa: Insights from rapidly expanding genomic surveillance

INTRODUCTION Investment in Africa over the past year with regard to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) sequencing has led to a massive increase in the number of sequences, which, to date, exceeds 100,000 sequences generated to track the pandemic on the continent. These sequences have profoundly affected how public health officials in Africa have navigated the COVID-19 pandemic. RATIONALE We demonstrate how the first 100,000 SARS-CoV-2 sequences from Africa have helped monitor the epidemic on the continent, how genomic surveillance expanded over the course of the pandemic, and how we adapted our sequencing methods to deal with an evolving virus. Finally, we also examine how viral lineages have spread across the continent in a phylogeographic framework to gain insights into the underlying temporal and spatial transmission dynamics for several variants of concern (VOCs). RESULTS Our results indicate that the number of countries in Africa that can sequence the virus within their own borders is growing and that this is coupled with a shorter turnaround time from the time of sampling to sequence submission. Ongoing evolution necessitated the continual updating of primer sets, and, as a result, eight primer sets were designed in tandem with viral evolution and used to ensure effective sequencing of the virus. The pandemic unfolded through multiple waves of infection that were each driven by distinct genetic lineages, with B.1-like ancestral strains associated with the first pandemic wave of infections in 2020. Successive waves on the continent were fueled by different VOCs, with Alpha and Beta cocirculating in distinct spatial patterns during the second wave and Delta and Omicron affecting the whole continent during the third and fourth waves, respectively. Phylogeographic reconstruction points toward distinct differences in viral importation and exportation patterns associated with the Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Omicron variants and subvariants, when considering both Africa versus the rest of the world and viral dissemination within the continent. Our epidemiological and phylogenetic inferences therefore underscore the heterogeneous nature of the pandemic on the continent and highlight key insights and challenges, for instance, recognizing the limitations of low testing proportions. We also highlight the early warning capacity that genomic surveillance in Africa has had for the rest of the world with the detection of new lineages and variants, the most recent being the characterization of various Omicron subvariants. CONCLUSION Sustained investment for diagnostics and genomic surveillance in Africa is needed as the virus continues to evolve. This is important not only to help combat SARS-CoV-2 on the continent but also because it can be used as a platform to help address the many emerging and reemerging infectious disease threats in Africa. In particular, capacity building for local sequencing within countries or within the continent should be prioritized because this is generally associated with shorter turnaround times, providing the most benefit to local public health authorities tasked with pandemic response and mitigation and allowing for the fastest reaction to localized outbreaks. These investments are crucial for pandemic preparedness and response and will serve the health of the continent well into the 21st century

Ocean model diagnosis of variability in the South Indian Ocean

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 180-195).Evidence exists that sea surface temperature (SST) variability in the South Indian Ocean may significantly influence weather and climate patterns in the southern African region. SST, in tum, can be influenced by variability in ocean fluxes, observations of which are limited in the South Indian Ocean and it is necessary to augment them with estimates derived from models. Two sets of variability in this region are examined in this thesis. The first concerns the large-scale interannual variability of the oceans neighbouring South Africa and the second, inter-ocean fluxes south of Africa on meso-through to interannual timescales. In terms of the former, a global ocean model forced with 50 years of NCEP (National Centre for Environmental Prediction) re-analyses winds and heat fluxes, has been used to investigate the evolution and forcing of interannual SST variability in the South Indian Ocean and co-variability patterns in the South Atlantic. Secondly, an eddy- permitting model is used to investigate volume, heat and salt fluxes in the oceanic region south of Africa and the effect of variations in the strength of wind forcing. Interannual dipole-like SST variability in the South Indian and South Atlantic Oceans were realistically simulated using the global ocean model, ORCA2. The model results imply that there are connections between large-scale modulations of the midlatitude atmospheric circulation of the Southern Hemisphere and co-evolving SST variability in the South Atlantic and South Indian Oceans. The atmospheric variability results in an increase (decrease) in strength of the anticyclonic wind fields over each ocean during positive (negative) dipole events. The resulting wind anomalies lead to changes in surface heat fluxes, short wave radiation, meridional Ekman heat transport and upwelling, all of which contribute to the evolution of these SST dipole patterns. Evidence is found of links between these dipole patterns and the Antarctic Oscillation and ENSO (El Niño Southern Oscillation)

A synthesis of three decades of socio-ecological change in False Bay, South Africa: setting the scene for multidisciplinary research and management

CITATION: Pfaff, M. C., et al. 2019. A synthesis of three decades of socio-ecological change in False Bay, South Africa: setting the scene for multidisciplinary research and management. Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene, 7(32). doi:10.1525/elementa.367The original publication is available at https://online.ucpress.edu/elementaOver the past three decades, marine resource management has shifted conceptually from top-down sectoral approaches towards the more systems-oriented multi-stakeholder frameworks of integrated coastal management and ecosystem-based conservation. However, the successful implementation of such frameworks is commonly hindered by a lack of cross-disciplinary knowledge transfer, especially between natural and social sciences. This review represents a holistic synthesis of three decades of change in the oceanography, biology and human dimension of False Bay, South Africa. The productivity of marine life in this bay and its close vicinity to the steadily growing metropolis of Cape Town have led to its socio-economic significance throughout history. Considerable research has highlighted shifts driven by climate change, human population growth, serial overfishing, and coastal development. Upwelling-inducing winds have increased in the region, leading to cooling and likely to nutrient enrichment of the bay. Subsequently the distributions of key components of the marine ecosystem have shifted eastward, including kelp, rock lobsters, seabirds, pelagic fish, and several alien invasive species. Increasing sea level and exposure to storm surges contribute to coastal erosion of the sandy shorelines in the bay, causing losses in coastal infrastructure and posing risk to coastal developments. Since the 1980s, the human population of Cape Town has doubled, and with it pollution has amplified. Overfishing has led to drastic declines in the catches of numerous commercially and recreationally targeted fish, and illegal fishing is widespread. The tourism value of the bay contributes substantially to the country’s economy, and whale watching, shark-cage diving and water sports have become important sources of revenue. Compliance with fisheries and environmental regulations would benefit from a systems-oriented approach whereby coastal systems are managed holistically, embracing both social and ecological goals. In this context, we synthesize knowledge and provide recommendations for multidisciplinary research and monitoring to achieve a better balance between developmental and environmental agendas.https://online.ucpress.edu/elementa/article/doi/10.1525/elementa.367/112511/A-synthesis-of-three-decades-of-socio-ecologicalPublisher’s versio