Hawaii Ocean Time-series (HOT): 2023-2028

Long-term observations of ocean physics, biology, and chemistry across decades provide a powerful lens for understanding the response of the oceans to environmental change. This award will continue the Hawaii Ocean Time-series (HOT) research program, which began in 1988, for an additional five years. Continuity of these observations will improve the value of the dataset for deciphering how natural and human-influenced climate signals affect ecosystem structure in the Pacific Ocean.

All HOT program data are publicly available and are frequently used by researchers and policy makers around the world. HOT also serves as (1) a testbed for the development of new sensors and methodologies, (2) a calibration/validation site, (3) an invaluable training ground that attracts students and researchers from around the globe, and (4) a forum for international collaboration and capacity building.

The proposed research will rely on shipboard observations and experiments conducted on ten separate five-day expeditions per year along with near-continuous moored platform measurements of air-sea interactions, ocean mixing, and physical characteristics of the deep sea. Observations include biogeochemical and physical measurements required for continued assessment of dynamics in ocean carbon and nutrient pools and fluxes, plankton community structure, ecosystem productivity, and inherent optical properties of the water column.

The major program goals and objectives over the next 5-years remain as in prior years and include: (1) sustain high quality, time-resolved oceanographic measurements on the interactions between ocean-climate and ecosystem variability in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre (NPSG), (2) quantify time-varying (seasonal to decadal) changes in reservoirs and fluxes of carbon and associated bioelements (nitrogen, phosphorus, and silicon), (3) constrain processes controlling air-sea carbon exchange, rates of carbon transformation through the planktonic food web, and fluxes of carbon into the ocean’s interior, (4) extend to 40-years a climatology of hydrographic and biogeochemical dynamics from which to gauge anomalous or extreme changes to the NPSG habitat, forming a multi-decadal baseline from which to decipher natural and anthropogenic influences on the NPSG ecosystem, (5) continue to provide scientific and logistical support to ancillary programs that benefit from the temporal context, interdisciplinary science, and regular access to the open sea afforded by HOT program occupation of Station ALOHA, including projects implementing, testing, and validating new methodologies and transformative ocean sampling technologies, and (6) provide unique training and educational opportunities for the next generation of ocean scientists.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.