This initiative masterfully translates elite Earth observation data into a democratized educational resource, proving that high-level science is only as valuable as its accessibility. It effectively bridges the gap between complex oceanography and the urgent need for global environmental literacy.
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Ocean Sessions - Teaching the OceanAdded:
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Good morning, good afternoon, good evening everyone. Welcome to today's ocean ocean session by the copernicus marine service dedicated to teaching the ocean. I'm Marin Delarm training and capacity development officer at market or ocean international and I will be gu guiding you through this webinar.
Today we will explore how oper operational ocean data indicators and tools made available by copernicus marine can support ocean literacy education and the development of engaging learning resources for students of all ages.
Before we begin, let's quickly go over some house rules to make sure you enjoy the session to the fullest. Please don't use the chat box on your right hand side for questions. It's there for greetings and for sharing links with participants throughout the session.
If you have a technical or content related question, we invite you to use the dedicated Q&A section.
You can scan this QR code on the screen or click the Q&A button at the top of your screen to ask questions to our speakers. We'll have a Q&A session at the end of each presentation.
And while you are on this part of the website, you will also see a poll about today's webinar. Feel free to fill it out anytime during the session. It helps us know what you thought of the webinar, any way that we could improve it. We will also send you a link uh to the survey after the webinar, so you can also fill it out later if you prefer.
Finally, we encourage you to visit the guidelines and resources section of the event website. There you will find useful links to ocean literacy resources and to se several relevant parts of the copernicus marine website as well as links shared by our guest speakers from today.
Now let's take a look at today's agenda.
We will begin with a short introduction to the capernicus marine service followed by two presentations by Andrea Carvalo from Marcato Ocean. She will go over some capernicus marine ocean literacy resources and do a demonstration of a new ocean data viewer called my ocean health. After this we will take a short coffee break for about 10 minutes.
After the break, we'll continue with a live demo by Tony Jolibu from Mar Ocean who will introduce the myio Ocean light and my ocean pro viewers. We will then wrap up the session with two presentations from users of Copernicus marine data and tools sharing how they integrate these resources into teaching the ocean.
First, Stephanie Lass and Mar uh from Children for the Oceans will show how they raise awareness among children and the wider public about the crucial role the ocean plays for our planet. Then uh Janice Andrewis, physical oceanographer and professor at the University of the Agent will explain how integrates copernicus marine data into his teaching with a focus on extreme weather and ocean hazards.
So let's start with a short introduction to the Copernicus marine service.
Copernicus is the European Union's Earth observation program. Its core principle is simple but powerful, providing free, open, and reliable environmental data so that it can be reused well beyond the scientific community, including by professors and educators within Copernicus. The copernicus marine service which is implemented and operated by Marcata Ocean International focuses on the ocean. It delivers high quality regularly updated data describing the physical ocean, sea ice and marine ecosystems at global and regional scales.
This data supports science, policy, coastal management, innovation and many different sectors of the blue economy.
All Copernicus marine data comes from a combination of three complimentary sources. Satellite observations which provide global continuous coverage. INC2 observations from buoys, bloats and research vessels offering precise local measurements and ocean models which assimulate all observations and generate forecast analysis and up to 30 years of historical reanalysis.
All this data covers the global ocean and Europe's key regional uh seas. The data is scientifically validated, consistent, and comparable across time and space, which makes it valuable for both uh scientific and operational applications.
To make the ocean easier to explore, Copernicus Marine groups variables into three main families. The blue ocean covers physical processes such as temperature, salinity, currents, sea level, winds, and waves. The white ocean focuses on sea ice variables like concentration, thickness, and motion.
And the green ocean includes biogeeochemical indicators like chlorophyll, nutrients, oxygen, carbon, pH, and ecosystem related variables.
This means access to a very wide range of possible topics. Climate change, marine heat waves, biodiversity, polar regions, extreme events, all from a single coherent data source.
All Copernicus marine data is accessible through a single website marine.coernnicus.eu.
After a simple and free registration, you can browse the data store, download harmonized data sets, and explore detailed product pages that include metadata, documentation, quality information, and multiple data access options. From the homepage, click Ocean Products to open the catalog.
In addition to downloading data, you can explore it visually using our online tools available under ocean visualization.
There are three viewers, each designed for different needs. My Ocean Learn is ideal for outreach, education, and simplified exploration. My Ocean Light, perfect for quick interactive viewing of essential ocean variables. And My Ocean Pro, our advanced viewer for more detailed exploration. selecting specific data sets, comparing satellite INC2 model data, performing custom queries, and generating high resolution graphs.
A little bit later today, Tony Liua from Mar Ocean will do a demonstration of the main features of the Myio Ocean Light and my my ocean pro viewers.
You're not expected to figure everything out on your own. There is a full support system for the copernicus marine service uh tutorials documentation a help center and direct access to the support team.
Don't hesitate to explore the user corner tab of the website to reach the help center and a live chat is available at all times in the bottom right hand corner.
You can interact with Blue, the Copernicus Marine AI companion, which answers many questions instantly. And if the automated support is not enough, users can always reach a human expert for personalized help.
Just as important, we actively collect feedback from users. It helps us understand how the service is used, what works, what doesn't, and how we can improving improve it, including for teaching users. In the user corner, you can access the user feedback and needs platform, which is dedicated space for users to share ideas, suggestions or needs. We also have an annual survey open until 15th of May collecting feedback to improve the service and to which you can have access by scanning this QR code or clicking the link in the chat. So, thank you in advance for your contribution.
Last but not least, Marata Ocean International and the Copernicus Marine Service have launched a new podcast called Decoding the Ocean. The series will explore how ocean science, digital innovation, and free and reliable ocean information have real world impact. The podcast is available on all podcast platforms. You can access it by scanning the QR code on the screen or through the link in the chat. The first episode introduces the fundamental role the ocean uh plays in regulating the climate, supporting biodiversity, and sustaining human activities. While the second episode explore how oceanbased activities such as agriculture and offshore energy form what is known as the blue economy.
Thank you very much for your attention on this short introduction to the copernicus marine service. There are a lot of uh additional things to say and to present and so I will give the floor now to uh Andrea Carvalo who's a science communication officer at Marat Ocean who will uh give us an overview of some of the many ocean literacy resources that are available from the service. So Andrea are you here?
>> Hello. Yes, good morning. Hope you can hear me well.
>> Yes, we can hear you well.
Okay. So, I'll be sharing my screen now.
Hope you can see it as well.
>> Yes, we can sit in presentation mode.
So, the floor is yours.
>> Perfect. Thank you. Thank you very much, Marin, for the introduction. Um, and yes, so I will be going through a few of our um ocean literacy resources. Um all of these you um are able to find um through the copernicus marine website.
Um so we have um a variety of resources and can be adapted to um different audiences and to different level of expertise or even different age groups.
Um so this is just an overview. I'll now go um through each of them just give you more detail on each of these resources.
So first we have the ocean explainers.
So these are the very basic um information you can find um in the copernic marine website. These are informative pages um with infographics that will explain from very um basic topics um like for example what is an ocean wave um to more complex phenomena like ocean acidification or specific currents. Um so here you can find um really the the first level information on on these topics and also on what is ocean uh operational oceanography which is the the core activity of the copernicus marine service um so how is the data collected um why do we need all these instruments etc um and also on the the different phenomena and threats that um are impacting um the ocean. So yeah, these are a very good start um if you are um maybe someone young who doesn't know much about the ocean yet or or a teacher who's looking to to find basic materials to to use in their courses.
This is a good start.
Another one um is the ocean climate portal. This is um based on the information of ocean monitoring indicators. So these are key variables that are monitored through throughout a long period of time. let's say at least three decades. Um and that provided an information about the state of the ocean. Um so the ocean climate portal is um also a place where you can find a lot of information about these key indicators. What is the current state?
What are the key trends of these indicators? So a lot of valuable information. So a little bit more advanced maybe for someone who wants to know a little bit more in detail each of these variables and what is what is the state of the ocean related to these variables.
Um so we already saw that we also have data visualization tools. Tony will will show you a little bit more about these later. Um so we have we do have three levels of viewers. Um the light the learn the light and the pro. Um I would say the very first level is the learn.
And so this is a very good first level to to start playing with the globe visualizing each of the variables. Um and also learning a little bit more about these variables as each of of these variables have a an information a little pop pop popup window with more information. Um this is a really nice tool also to actually all the visualization tools are embedded and integrated in web pages. So you can actually use it in your own websites. Um and we have also used it for example my ocean learn we have used it in um in a lot of exhibitions in events and we have also seen it um exposed in museums. So they they work really well um as they have this big globe and they're very immersive um tools that work really well in places like museums as well.
Um okay the next resource um it's the oceans report but more specifically it's summary. So the oceans report um is an annual publication um the annual publication of the capernicus marine service that focuses on reporting on the state of the ocean.
So the latest trends, the latest extreme events um and basically the latest knowledge about the state of the ocean.
So this is a a scientific publication.
So every year we create also a summary of this scientific publication which is um focusing on non-scientific audiences.
So mainly policy makers and the general public but um the level is supposed to be adapted to anyone that doesn't doesn't have a scientific background and just wants to know about the state of the ocean.
So we normally adapt the language of course it has key numbers a lot of illustrations to to be easy to read easy to scan and to be able to yeah to just learn more about the situation.
Um a new um report that we have been developing since the last year is the starfish barometer. It's a yearly assessment um of the diff of different topics related to the ocean. not only the state of the ocean but also other topics like protection protection efforts opportunities for humanity societal harms so all the and human pressures so all the activities that humans are creating that are impacting the ocean ecosystems and the different resources so this is another assessment that we provide every year since since last year a lot of key numbers key information And it is u done in collaboration with a large scientific community international scientific community. So um this is like reliable information that is provided every year and freely like all these resources that I presented.
And uh lastly um we we monitor the ocean continuously with the copernicus marine service and we publish bulletins um providing analysis on for example the temperature the ice and marine heat wave events. Um so every on a quarterly basis we provide um a recap a synthesis of um the last few months um related to to these different variables. Um so yeah on on our website you can also find a section on the ocean health bulletins providing yeah this synthesis. So more knowledge more information and key numbers you can find over there.
And that's it for me for this quick recap.
of all the the the resources you can find online.
Um >> thank thank you very much Andrea.
>> Uh okay. So, um I will just uh share my screen again uh to actually um talk about uh another resource that I think could be very useful.
Um and then we will go to the Q&A uh section.
Okay. So the final resources uh that I wanted to tell you about uh from this section was uh the e-learning material section of the website which is designed to help users get started and go further in using marine data. So from the copernicus marine website homepage you need to click on user corner and then uh e-learning.
This section brings together a range of hands-on tutorials covering different ocean topics and skill levels from beginners to advanced users. All materials are freely accessible online.
What makes uh this resource valuable is its practical approach with many tutorials available as interactive Jupyter notebooks that guide users step by step either online or locally on your computer.
The tutorials also cover widely used tools and coding languages such as Python, R and QGIS, helping users analyze and visualize Copernicus marine data in real world applications. We have more than 100 tutorials at the moment. Um, so when you click on the tutorial, you're taken to a dedicated page with more details on its context and content. You will find links to download all the necessary files along with a step-by-step video guide.
>> Hello everyone, welcome to this >> to help you follow the tutorial. You'll also see recommendations for the tools needed to run it. All these materials are completely free and can be especially useful for teaching in university settings for example to learn uh to help students learn how to create graphs and maps using a range of tools in coding languages. So don't hesitate to uh >> uh visit this this section uh because it's uh very valuable and uh we try to uh develop tutorials that are uh in line with current events that explore u ocean phenomena. So um have a look at this. Uh great. So now we will go to uh the Q&A session. So uh just a reminder before we go to it, you can access the the the place where you can ask your questions by scanning the QR code on uh the screen or you can also clink click the link that is being shared in the chat. Um and this is where we will be uh collecting your questions.
um keep this page because uh we'll get back to to it every time we um we go to a Q&A during uh this session and this is where we will collect all your questions.
So let me see actually we've started uh receiving some questions. Um so uh the first question is we need to develop an app for fishermen especially to provide them with potential fishing zones.
My question is if I take these data sets which have global coverage how accurate is my information going to be at the local level keeping in mind scale and coverage.
I would say it really depends on the product that you actually look at and the res resolution of of set product. Uh so this is an information you can find uh in each of the products pages and documentation.
Uh but not all the products have the same resolution.
So um yeah it I can't give a global answer to this question. It really depends on the product.
The next question is uh for the GIS tutorials do you use S3 software or open source opensource software like uh QGIS?
We use QGIS. Uh we make sure to use open sour source softwares and materials as much as possible. Um so yeah you will uh for each um GIS tutorial you will you will find uh PDF with all the steps uh to go through the tutorial uh as well as the project that you can open in QGIS with all the uh necessary images. uh the data is also pre-downloaded in the folder with uh the QGIS project and uh as I presented before you also have the video tutorial that could be very useful to follow along as well.
Next question is um do you have learning materials in other languages than English? That's a really good question. Um, we I think we have some in the e-learning uh materials section. Um, but if you ask the user support through the the AI agent uh so blue which is on the bottom right corner of each page of the website. uh we might be able to provide you with some materials in other languages that are not available on the website. Uh it's something that we are trying to to work on actually to uh um extend the number of languages that we uh work on. Uh but uh they are mainly in English at the moment.
Um, next question is, um, I am a senior environmental systems and society facilitator and I found this resource very useful. Is there any possibility that you could conduct an online workshop with my students? Um, at the moment we uh are not planning for any um personalized workshop. Uh, but that's something that we that could be discussed I guess. Um so yeah you can send us a message and and see what's possible. The idea today is also to present the large um diversity of resources that we have that could be useful for teaching. Uh but obviously we're also very eager to get your feedback on what we're presenting today and what could be useful for you to get to go into more details because because there are a lot of different things that we could be focusing on and we could spend hours presenting tools. So uh yeah don't hesitate to also fill out the the survey uh after the webinar so that uh we also get this feedback from you.
Okay. Thank you. Uh, next question is, can we use the software to create underwater maps uh like coral reef mapping etc. Uh, I'm not quite sure uh what software you're mentioning, but um I think it's something you can do uh using um Python.
uh you could uh develop a tutorial doing this, I'm guessing, but I'm not quite sure what software you're referring to.
I don't know. Uh Andrea, does do you have any idea what what this question could be about?
You >> Tony wants to answer.
>> Uh yes, Tony, you have something you >> Yeah. What I understand of this question is that the software is the the services where Copernicus marine are provided providing no uh and actually that's that's my understanding uh and to create underwater maps 3D it's not possible for the moment it will be in the in the in the future but what uh I will show after is how uh to um dig into the data in 3D and then four dimension using the graphs and maps and not directly 3D uh three-dimension maps.
>> Okay, thank you. So yes, stay tuned for this presentation a little bit later today.
Um, next question is about uh plastic pollution in the Mediterranean basin.
Uh, so you won't be able to find data on marine liter and microplastic on through the copernicus marine service. Um but you can you will have you will find data about currents for example that could be useful in uh these uh types of um uh uses. Um but yeah we don't display data on marine liter actually.
Um, I guess this is the last question that we will answer because we have to keep up with the timing. But the question is, what are the specific resources for educators?
>> Um, I think all of the ones that we've uh shared today could be useful for educators. I don't know, Andrea, if you want to uh >> add something to this.
>> No, that's it. Um everything that um I presented can be used um in your classes for for different they can be adapted to different uh age groups of course. Um but um all of this can be a really good resource to to be incorporated in your in your classes either as an exploratory more as an exploratory tool uh do it yourself or or such a just a base information for for students to to learn more or or to to research about the information that is made available through the capernicus marine service being assessments or um yeah just these informative pages. which is all of these can be yeah really good resources for you.
>> Yeah, absolutely. And you will also get inspiration from our two guest speakers a bit later today who are users of Copernicus marine data and uh tools who actually use the data uh uh either uh in university classes or in classes for students uh from uh primary school to high school. So um who are um younger as well. So um I think uh these would be really good examples of how these resources can actually be used in in the classroom.
Okay. So thank you very much. Um we can now uh I will actually start stop sharing my screen and we can go back to you Andrea for the demonstration of the my ocean health uh viewer uh which is a very valuable tool that uh is going to be available very soon. So the floor is yours.
>> Thank you. Yes. So a little disclaimer um this tool is not yet available is in beta version and we will be launching it officially next month. So beginning of June and um yeah we're very happy to make it available. Um we know that it's going to be very useful and um yeah we're very happy with it so far. Um my colleague Tony was heavily involved in this and yeah we're very happy to make it available soon to you. Um so it's my ocean health. Um it's a new um interactive tool um and it's um focusing on showing key ocean variables such as the plus temperature which is what you're seeing here um and others such as marine heat waves um sea level pH which is a representation of oceanification um and Arctic sea ice extent for example um and so my ocean health because these variables when they are measured over a long period of time they can give us an idea of the health of the ocean. Um and so the tool um focuses on providing a vision on on a globe. So you can see for example here we see sea surface temperature um it's represented um in this colored scale um and we see the typical um difference in temperature right warmer in the tropics warmer in the closer to the equator colder near the poles um so you can actually really rotate the globe so quite interactive um and here we are seeing the sea surface temperature um for the global ution for today. Um so we we will display um daily uh values daily data so on real time real time um and also all the way from since 1993.
Um so here you can choose another date um the the heat of the temperature at another moment in time and on the right hand side we have a graph what we call a time series. So a graph that represents sea surface temperature since 1993 um all the way to today 2026.
Here we are and we have sea surface temperature. The average sea surface temperature on the global ocean for today 21 degrees. Um you can also um see these values on a monthly and annual basis on an annual basis you really get the idea of how this has been changing since 1993 and we see it is globally increasing.
Um so beside the absolute values we also have anomalies.
So an anomaly for example related to sea surface temperature is um a temperature value that is above or below a certain average. So an average that has been measured for at least 30 years for example. And we know that that's okay that's the average temperature for this particular place. And an anomaly is when this temperature is either above or below. And so here you can actually see on the globe the areas in red where temperatures were above this average and the areas in blue where the temperature was below this average.
Um so this is for January but you can also see it for today like we said.
Um the same for the same for um the time series. So this is quite interactive. You can pick another year for example.
You can select yeah quickly check the temperature for today and compare it to to another year. So it's really useful to see change ocean change um into yeah through the different variables. Um another variable um we show is um marine heat waves.
So we hear more and more about marine heat waves. Unfortunately um they are becoming more intense, more frequent and um yeah very present around the global ocean. The marine heat waves are extreme events or extreme so events of extreme temperature um that last for at least 5 days. That's when we consider marine heat wave when it has been an extreme temperature has been present for at least 5 days. But they can last many many days, two months and and up to two years even. And so when these events are intense and last for a long time, this can be um quite impactful on marine species. Um and so yeah, we we know for example, coral reefs are quite sensitive to temperature, but also different species of fish. Um they can be quite stressed about these changes in temperature. So this is something else we we also show in my ocean health and actually they include we also include a forecast so you can see what are the conditions in marine heat waves going to be for um the n 9th of May for example already. So we we show a 10day forecast for this conditions the same for that was um another another variable which is also quite interesting to look at is um the tech.
So um the ice is is the water that has frozen. I'm going very basic here on the concepts because I don't know who the public is who the audience is. So um we're talking about the sea sea water that has frozen and so sea ice extent is the area occupied by the sea ice and so we measure that uh daily as well the copernicus marine service we look at these values on a daily basis on and on a monthly basis um and so here on the on our graph on the right hand side you can see for se ice in the Arctic which is what we are seeing here Um there's a clear pattern that is repeated every year, right? Because it's a seasonal cycle that we see. Um there's increase in sea ice that reaches its peak during the winter, normally around February, March. Um and then it starts to decrease, melt um until the reaches a minimum around um the end of the summer on the northern hemisphere. Um and so yeah we see this pattern being repeated every every year. Um so we here we also can see very clearly if we look at this dashed line it represents the long-term average of CI extents in the Arctic um for each day and we see that um the 2026 or where we are now it's well below this average. we are here 2026 and the average is here. So it's quite obvious um the change that has been happening over the years and um yes so so it's a very visual uh tool and uh and also quite interactive and um another very useful feature of of this new tool is that you can download an image of both the globe and and the graph. So you can use to illustrate um whatever you would like an article or um a web page.
But you can also integrate um these two um these two um materials um individually uh on a web page as well. So let's say you're creating your own um um ocean literacy resources. You're creating a new page dedicated to sea ice and you would like to have something like this uh in your web page. you can you will be able to to integrate um this uh these features and and be able to have it also in an interactive mode.
Um so yeah, I think I I I gave you more or less an overview of this new tool. So yeah, like I said, it's not yet available, but it will be very soon. And um you will know more about it, of course, if you follow us on social media. Um, and yeah, if you follow it on our channels, you will know when this will be out. Yeah. Okay, that's that's it for this short demonstration.
>> Thank you, Andrea. Uh, I think it's going to be it's a very valuable tool and um I can imagine a lot of different uses for it as well. Uh, we received some questions so I will show them on the screen.
Um the first one is a very good one. So if you could could give us a little course on marine heat waves, it would be uh really appreciated. So the question is why marine why are marine heat waves increasing?
>> Well, we know that the ocean is warming um due to um greenhouse gas emissions.
Um so the earth is warming and the ocean is taking up most of that heat that is being trapped in the atmosphere. So most of it close to 90%. And so all this heat that is being trapped in the ocean is um causing a lot of um extreme events including marine heat waves for example.
This is one of the reasons that we know at least.
>> Okay. Thank you.
The next question is how do the tools define the baseline for a heat wave?
>> Um so it um I do know that it is a statistical um calculation that is done um it's a pro it's a method that is already extensively accepted in in um scientific community and um it wasn't something that we invented. We took that method and we applied it. Um, so yeah, I I hope I answered your question. Um, and then for as a longterm or I mean baseline if we're talking about um the sea surface temperature um baseline that we that that we use that would be a period since 1993 to 2022. That's our sea surface temperature baseline.
I think the ocean health bulletins that you presented earlier as well there are some um focusing on marine heat waves that could be quite useful also to answer any question related to this.
>> Yes. So we monitor marine heat waves on on a monthly basis, but we also produce a weekly forecast on marine heatwave events. Um that uh yeah, we can definitely share the link with you guys.
And this is yeah, something if it interests you to to know more about how this has been evolving definitely.
Uh next question is do you use Noah data for SST uh or where do does your data come from? Um I know that we so we it's our model data so it's from our um global ocean model um produced the the medical marine service um we do use observations um that we use to validate our models um and I do know that they come from different uh centers uh I wouldn't be able to to answer if it is Noah but we we do use observation from other centers um which are used to validate our sea surface temperature models. Yes.
>> Great. Thank you. Um next question is uh what does this biomass refer to?
>> Biomass. I don't think I'm I'm I show that in biomass on the my ocean. We don't have at the moment any biomass. We we do we do show chlorophyll in but I think Tony can talk a bit more about that later on that's visible in in well we do have products that include biomass but it's for example for chlorophyll um a something like that. Um I didn't show any biomass here. Okay.
Uh, how accurate is the data for the marine heatwave in Antarctic where we have very limited data?
>> Well, I'm not the one working directly with the data here. So, I I wouldn't be able to answer you in this uh in this sense.
If you have any specific questions, I think you can contact us. I mean, on the topic or something like that.
Absolutely. And this >> this is also an answer we could uh integrate into the postevent report that we will be sending with um unanswered questions from today. So um uh go back and check this report for more uh answers if we haven't had time to actually answer your question during the the event.
>> Uh the next question is I am a math teacher in high school. Which tool do you suggest to use in a classroom in order to introduce ocean analysis and environmental knowledge for young people?
>> Um so definitely the viewers are a very good option um to visualize I guess the way the different variables change across the globe. Um and you can also have access to you know the different values um in different areas of the of the globe. Um the ocean climate portal also provides uh some knowledge related to um key variables and and how they have changed over time. Uh and soon my ocean health of course that would be a very good tool also to show um these changes. Um yeah from top of my head and just thinking about those. Yeah, I think uh the my ocean light viewer focuses on some key variables that are um quite interesting to look at in terms of ocean variables. Um so I guess that's definitely a tool that uh Tony is going to show a bit later today and I think it's um it's very visual to um to be able to understand what's happening.
only yeah sorry if we focus only on a on a tool of course because yeah then there's other resources that can be um they have environmental knowledge but it's not necessarily tool so yeah >> yeah and I guess also the ocean explainers are really good resources to understand ocean phenomena as well >> exactly yeah if you call everything a tool in this sense we have our own we have our own uh wording but uh definitely I mean Everything that we have shown before um these are all very good tools for environmental knowledge different levels like I said and more or less interactive more or less visual.
>> Um next question is um as not being an ocean expert I have difficulties interpreting the data observed. So my question is how can you interpret the listed events as hazards? Would it be possible to offer next to the graph some thresholds impact on marine life?
>> Yeah, I see. Um, we do provide some key numbers um together with the graphs where we explain okay how much has um for example how much of the group has been impacted um by this phenomenon last year or something like that. That is something that it was already thought.
Um and yes we don't provide necessarily once the tool is visualization tool we don't provide necessarily the um let's say the context directly with it. Um we do have other resources like we have our bulletins um that are more thorough explanation on on for example the analysis of what happened last year. Um but it's true that we could try to maybe connect it more or bring more yeah context to the visualization tools to yeah to give more context right on what people are observing.
>> Yeah that's a very good suggestion.
>> User feedback. Perfect.
>> Yeah exactly. I always interested to learn more about how our tools can be useful more useful and adapt to other contexts. Definitely.
>> Definitely. Uh, next question.
Um, is I think this one is a very uh um wide one. So, could you please explain how Copernicus collects the data? So, um I don't know Andrea if you want to to give it a try.
>> Well, you you did say it in your presentation, right? like um yeah we use so we use um INC2 observation. So um instruments like boys uh like moings and gliders. So these are instruments that we deploy um are deployed everywhere in the ocean. They are collecting uh data in the in a specific location. Right.
This is a a vast network of instruments.
Um and then we also have uh the Sentinel um family of satellites um that are part of the European Commission and they are collecting data on different uh different levels of the of the the earth including the ocean. Um and then so this is for the collection of data itself and then we also have um the development of ocean models. um so mathematical equations that um can recreate the ocean conditions for the areas for example where we don't have data and so yeah it's very generally >> yeah there's a lot of different ways the data is collected and a long process of things happening before the the data actually lands on the on the website and is available for users We actually have an explainer on that as well.
>> Perfect. Here you go. Ocean explainer once again.
Um, do you have mapping system for blue carbon stocks in coastal areas and in ocean?
>> I don't think so.
carbon >> to measure carbon of course in the carbon flux but not um if I understand is like regions where carbon is being really absorbed by um marine species right like seagrass or something like that this is not something we have not at the moment >> no but if you want to um browse through the the products uh offering uh carbon as a variable you can also ask the uh the AI agent blue for to to be pointed towards uh one of those products that offer this variable. If you want to have a look in the in the viewer, for example, for uh this kind of of product or to download the data, this is a good question to ask uh the the user support team and the AI agent.
Um okay, we're going to take a few more questions before the break. Um so uh the question is do your models help predict El Nino and Leninia or only show past data?
>> We don't show only past data. We also create forecasts up to 10 days. Um and there's also work being done on creating forecasts a little bit longer up to 30 days. Um but uh we are not able to create yet uh seasonal forecasts or like we're at least we're not distributing yet um forecasts that are like months in advance or something like that. So if we are looking at for example in very month few months in advance we wouldn't be able to see that. Um but yeah depends if if we are looking into the next 10 days we would be able to to tell you a bit more about the the conditions in the ocean. Yeah.
>> And actually Tony Jolibu a bit later will show a dashboard that was created focusing on El Nino. So stay tuned for this cuz I think it's also uh a very valuable tool to have a look and in the dashboard we can actually see um the evolution >> uh that's happening at the moment. So yeah definitely uh stay after the the break to to see this as well.
Um do you have any resources specifically covering kelp? We have a unit on the degradation of seaweed forest and what can be done to mitigate this. Um perhaps there's some information on kelp ecosystem coverage over the decades.
>> I don't think we have on that. I know that there are there are others I mean there's new products being added related to marine ecosystems uh but they include mainly zool plankton and um lower and higher tropical levels. um certain species of fish, but they don't uh I as far as I know I don't think there's anything related to kelp. No, I mean we do distribute all the data and information related to physical components of the ocean though that can probably help um in your study. Um so information related to the um sea surface temperature related to biochemistry so the content of chlorophyll oxygen and carbon in the water um current yeah or physics and some biogeeochemical conditions then it can help you maybe in your study.
>> Perfect. Thank you. Uh next question is uh can my ocean health provide data filtered by region or area of interest?
This capability would be beneficial for regional studies.
>> Um yes. So in the current version um it's this feature doesn't exist yet the regional um selection but it is something that we are working on on adding in the future. Definitely the regional um um the different regions of the globe, different ocean basins are definitely an interest and we know that it is very interesting to focus um on each bas. So it's definitely something we are working on adding in the future.
>> Great. Um we will take one last question to keep up with the time. So >> yeah, we we are receiving actually a lot of questions. So we'll definitely be sending a post event report to address all of these. Um I am conducting a study on the impact of ENSO on ocean currents and sea surface temperature in Indonesian waters. How reliable is the reanalysis data from Copernicus Marine Service for regional scale studies like this? and what limitations should I be aware of uh accuracy and application?
>> Yeah. So I think it's not so much a question for me um since I don't work directly with the data. So I think this question should be best sent to uh the user support um and yeah I think it could be something that they can help you with that. Um yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> Um yeah, definitely a question. I guess once again um maybe um ask the question related directly to the product that you would like to work with. The data is uh validated. Uh it follows a very rigorous scientific process. So the data is uh is uh obvious obviously reliable. Um and this is information that you can find on um documents that are available from each product page. Um that actually um uh give a lot of details about um the data, how it was collected, how it's validated. all the these processes is described in these documents and I think if you want to have all the details about this uh you can definitely read through uh these documents um that are available from uh the product page on the left hand side of of the page um so uh definitely have a look through these um and I just see uh the next question is are the tools free to use for research and educ educational purposes?
Absolutely. Everything is uh free to use. The the data is uh free to download. Um you just need to uh create an account on the copernicus marine service to access some elements. For example, if you want to download data, you will have to create an account. Um but you can also uh just view some of these tools without having to create the account. Uh but yeah, everything is absolutely free.
So thank you very much Andrea for your presentations. Uh it was uh really great. We received a lot of uh of questions. Um we will now take a short break of about 10 minutes. Uh so we'll be back at 11:10 um central European time. Uh and we will um have a a presentation and a demonstration of the viewers we've been talking about since the beginning. Um so yeah, see you in about 10 minutes.
Hello everybody. Can you hear me?
>> Yes, I can hear you.
>> Okay.
Sorry for the delay. Give me two seconds, please, to share my screen.
Yeah, we can see your screen. Okay.
All right. Uh, good morning.
>> So, you will be presenting a bit later.
>> Oh, okay. Because I heard my name, I thought. Sorry. Uh, >> no, no, all good. Um, so yeah, you will be presenting from 12.
>> Okay. Um, so let me stop sharing and sorry for the interruption.
>> That's okay. We'll be back in a few minutes.
Hello again everyone.
Hope you had time for to grab a coffee or some snacks. Uh I can see that Tony is here. So we'll uh restart the session with a demonstration of uh the my ocean viewers by Tony Jolie from Marat Ocean and and I think Tony you will also say a few words about the my ocean dashboard as well. So the floor is yours whenever you're ready.
>> Yeah, thank you Marine. Um hello to all.
So I'm Tony Jiu. I'm delighted that so many of you are here. So to access the the viewer uh just uh reach the marine the copernicus marine website click on visualization tool and you have here the three viewers that marine present you today for and I'll present you the my ocean light and the my ocean pro and maybe my ocean dashboard if I have time but uh I won't go into all the features. of these tools. Uh it would require much more than 25 minutes. So I'll focus on some stories, but the possibilities are really endless. Uh using these tools, you can illustrate with maps and graphs a lot of stories and studies for uh your students.
So first my ocean lights uh this this tool. So you see there is um uh for new user uh a tour that uh is proposed. So this tool um allows you to display uh about 10 essential variable uh of the ocean of the blue white and green ocean from um nearly 1993 to forecast. So you are uh here uh looking at the seawater temperature uh for the 6th of May. It means tomorrow. Uh and you can navigate on time using this timeline.
And you can also navigate on death using this uh control here.
So I reach again the surface.
So this tool is interesting for beginners and intermediate users. Uh everyone who wants to look uh at the ocean without having to ch to choose among products. If you want to display temperature, you click just click on temperature. If you want to display salinity or so on, just click on the the the variable control here. So, um my ocean light will always display the best data available. For example, here we are on global scale and we are in the past uh March 2025 and behind the scene the my light uh select the global product and the multi-year product which is uh with best quality than uh the near realtime product. If I zoom on the Mediterranean Sea here, the tool just uh switched to the the Mediterranean Sea product.
So yeah, just the best data available automatically selected uh for you. What is striking about these viewers is that they provide interactive access to the data in real time.
So looking at each variable at global scale you can examine uh the geographical distribution of the of the values. So for temperature of course uh warmer near the equator and uh colder cooler near the poles.
uh the salinity you can see the river the inflows for from rivers like Amazon congos uh and and so on uh the current oh let me customize a bit the color palette I prefer that one for the current so for the current you see uh with the color the inent the intensity of the of the seawater velocity and with the streamlines you see the direction.
So here clearly for beginners we see the ocean gyus uh clockwise in the north uh north hemisphere and anticlockwise in the southern hemisphere.
Yeah, thank you. You can also see all the famous current of the ocean. Uh the Gulf Stream here, the the the the famous current in South Africa here, the Algulas current and so on. The COS 8. So no the ocean is not flat and the sea level rise uh is not uniform wave height also.
So uh again the direction and identity um here. So you see a lot of uh a lot of variable also the the biomass. There was a question um regarding the the the chemistry of the ocean. So we have chlorophyll a for the flon uh the pH the oxygen and the biomass.
Okay.
Um Okay.
Let's start with a simple question for a beginner. Uh many people believe that uh temperature mainly depends on latitude.
The closer you are to the equator, the warmer it is. So let's check with uh using a real ocean data. So for that I will create just by clicking on the map different points on the same uh latitude near Marles near Berit near north of Portugal and near uh Canada.
Okay, it creates sorry it creates some uh graphs that I can group here very easily.
Okay.
So I maximize it. I just remove the graph I don't want to talk to to speak about. Sorry. So yeah, we see here that of course uh different point on the same latitude have different uh seawater temperature. It's quite uh quite different. 4° uh near uh the Gulf of Maine. Um, and something quite uh harmonized uh here, but uh that is not always harmonized.
For example, here you can see that in Portugal the seawater temperature is uh really cooler than uh in the Mediterranean Sea. So here sorry I I I forgot to say this is this is uh but it's quite obvious now this is the the time series of the different v of the variable at the different location uh of the of the point so a b c d e and you can navigate on time using the graph uh so to reach the minimum for example here the minimum in 20 25 or the maximum.
You can uh zoom on graph using the mouse wheel.
Okay. And uh each time you navigate on time here in the graph you have the date uh here in the timeline. You can also navigate with with the timeline everything with will be updated uh accordingly.
So as you can see this my ocean light is quite uh easy to to use and um quite relevant for intermediate and beginners and intermediate users. So if you go if you want to to go further uh you can switch to the myian pro viewer. So from here you click on the go to expert viewer here. So no uh main differences uh in the switch um except that you have statistics uh here um you can you can see here the average on time and the minimum and maximum. I don't I don't know if you if you see it quite clearly in the the the screen in the shared screen the the numbers are quite small.
So um a big big uh difference with my ocean light is that when you want to navigate uh in the data you click here on add layer and you reach the all the the the the copicus marine products uh meaning more than 300 products. So can be quite uh difficult to find your way around. Uh so you can use here some filters uh to to to yeah to find your way your way around by selecting the data by universe, blue, white, green, by the the main variable by areas.
And you also see here uh the source of the data. So all the Copernicus marine uh data come from numerical models and observation uh institute observation and satellite observation.
So an an example on how the tool can be used to teach the ocean. the bloom of fto plankton in the north Atlantic Ocean. So to do that I can select plankton and here I reach the model output the biogeeochemistry analysis and forecast and I can add to map uh the photolton daily.
Okay, can give it these graphs and let's focus on ftopon.
So we are navigate we can navigate on time and just again with the timeline you can zoom with the the mouse wheel.
So here, okay, I we are the beginning of March and if I navigate uh toward the uh spring, you can see uh the rise, the bloom of ptoon here.
So what can be cool is to generate a temporal animation on that. So to do that there is this share button where you can uh copy a link a link to share with people. So this this share button allows you to to share what you are uh the your use of this this tool. So you can uh share a link uh to uh people, you can share and export an image or you can generate a temporal animation. To do that uh you will need um u an account.
Uh so here I logging in and then I can generate a temporal animation of the the the ftopon the chlorophyll a between maybe uh beginning of March until until now.
No, until even the the the forecast and generate video. So I just uh to to to to avoid wasting time I I have gen generated the temple animation uh just before this presentation.
So we see here April end of Fpril beginning of May and yeah this is clearly uh the spring in has arrived in the north uh Atlantic Ocean and every year between April and June the annual peak of FTOPlon can be can be seen here.
Okay.
So something I wanted to show you also is how to if you want your students to uh manipulate the data directly you can download the data here again you you must be uh logged in and again the reg registering registration is of course free uh there is no money Here the the goal of the registration is just for for us to know the usage of the services and and the and the data. So to download the data after login you click on this button and if you want to focus on that part of uh the ocean you define here and you click on download and then you download a net cdf net cdf file. So I won't go into the detail of uh all of this.
Okay. So what's uh I can't remember when I should stop. Uh maybe this is okay. So um I wanted to show you also the monitoring of uh El Nino and uh for that we have uh oh yeah there was a question on the on the concentration of microplastic in in the Mediterranean Sea. For that you can reach the Nectton viewer. So, Nectton is another project related to the copicus marine service and there is this the same my ocean pro viewer and you can browse the catalog of nectton to to see uh to look at the microplastic in seawater. But coming back to uh a nino uh oillation.
So there are some uh this this uh this other tool. So, my ocean light, my ocean pro and then uh this dashboard um allows you to uh have a dedicated page focused on a region and on a topic and you can play with maps and graphs and and so on. You can you can move it as uh as you want and you can um annotate all the maps and graphs you you have just created. So here this is the a map of temperature anomaly in the Pacific equatorial Pacific Ocean and I've imported uh the different uh Nino boxes that are standard in the scientific world uh to monitor uh a Nino. So here the graph presents the time series of the temperature anomaly averaged on each uh box. Okay. So you have here in blue the Nino 1 + 2, the Nino 3, Nino 3, four, and Nino 4. So it's very easy with that kind of graph to to to see El Nino uh event or leninia or uh a neutral situation and again you can u always navigate time using graphs.
El Nino is declared when the average temperature stays more than 0.5° above the long-term average for five consecutive months. So here we can see easily the beginning of uh El Nino in 2023.
uh it began in uh in April and end uh nearly one year later uh in March 2024.
So again here this tool is quite powerful as it bring it it gives you some statistics on each uh Elino box with the average minimum and maximum of the temperature and when so coming back to the real time here we are in uh May so by the 5th of May. Okay. And here by the end of April, you can see that. Okay. Forecast is here.
I just click on uh the plus here to extend the time frame. So uh it computes uh average on the several uh boxes. So it takes time and you see here the the the rise of the temperature anomaly as Andrea said and to answer a question uh just before we don't uh generate climate prediction uh or seasonal prediction but uh we generate 10 days forecast uh of data And we can see here that maybe El Nino is uh starting with uh temperature above uh the anom.
Okay, I think I'm I'm okay. I'm okay for uh that uh demo.
Um >> Okay. Thank you Tony >> Maren.
>> Thank you very much. Um we uh actually have some questions for you. I just wanted to mention before that that um we have replays of previous sessions available. um for example a session focusing on the myio pro viewer which was a 2hour session showing all the different um features of the viewers uh how to download data etc in more detail than we have time for today. So we will be sharing the link to this session in the chat so that you can have a look at it if you're interested in uh uh diving deeper into this tool. And we also have a similar session for uh the dashboards that Tony just showed you uh which shows how to um create your own dashboard if you're interested in monitoring a certain area for example. So we will be sharing the links to these replays in the chat. Uh and uh they are very valuable resource resources. So don't hesitate to have a look.
And uh now for the questions.
Uh so the first question is uh what does uh mean what does biomass mean in data sets?
You're muted. I don't know if you're >> Yeah. Um general general question but biomass is the total mass of living uh organism.
Uh in the in the seawater uh so uh it it includes uh many many organism living living in the ocean. I mean we could we could spend two hours uh answering the this question but uh yeah biomass is the the the first uh the the the first uh step of the the the food chain of the the the of the earth.
>> Yeah it could be phytolanton biomass or zop plankton biomass for example.
>> Yeah. Um, so yeah, it can mean several things. We It can mean we we're looking at several different things.
Um, thank you. Next question is, how can I use Copernicus marine data for fisheries management in small island countries like Comos? What are the best data sets for identifying potential fishing zones?
Um I would say that uh you can this is also a question that you can ask uh Blue the AI agent. Uh he's very knowledgeable about the products and uh he can definitely help you pick out which products could be useful for such um applications. So really don't hesitate to use this tool because it's uh um it's uh very helpful and if you're not satisfied with the answer, you can um ask to to speak to a member of the user support team could uh actually helped you uh answering this question. I don't know if Tony you wanted to uh add anything to to this question. Well, I mean identifying fishing zones typically relies on combination of physical biogeeochemical data such as sea surface temperature, chlorophyll concentration, ocean currents in France. So yeah again uh it's uh it's quite uh um wide question but um just uh regarding the small small island countries so our data sets are have a good resolution but uh uh not so high to to uh to work on a very very small areas. So yeah, great to see and it's a good advice.
Yes, Marine to to to to ask blue and the user support uh for that kind of question.
>> Okay, thank you. Next question please.
Um is can I use this tool to generate coastal early warning system? So, I guess the the answer would be um a bit similar to what we just answered before.
Uh really depending on on what you're uh trying to do. Um I I I mean the tool can be useful as well but uh maybe the data is useful and the fact that you can download the data as well I think is a good uh good thing to keep in mind uh for this if you need to incorporate the data in another application that you're developing for example this is possible.
Um, next question.
Uh, how can beginners start using net CDF data in QGIS? Are there free training programs or certifications available? Do you provide step-by-step tutorials for beginners? Is there support for users in Africa or small island developing states? So, we definitely have u tutorials on QGIS.
There is a plug-in that uh was developed a few years ago to open not CDF data into QGIS.
Um the plug-in is called uh net cdf2gis.
Um so you can download it directly from uh the copernicus marine uh service website. Once again you can ask blue and it will be able to direct you towards the plug-in to download. And if you go through the e-learning material section on the website, you will find some uh QGIS um tutorials.
Uh we are always open to learn about your specific needs in terms of topics etc for tutorials to develop. So don't hesitate to let us know as well in the survey if there is any topic in particular that you'd like uh to see in these tutorials.
Um is this setup also used for freshwater water body system?
Um >> if the water freshwater water body system refers to to to land data um no we as the copicus marine service focus on on the ocean and seas uh we don't provide um data on the the land u the land part there is uh the land copernicus the copernicus land service that is providing that uh kind of data.
Otherwise, we provide fresh water for um the ocean and seas as I just uh mentioned before with uh using essentially the seawater salinity and again we clearly see the the river inflows uh in in the ocean. Um yeah.
>> Okay. Thank you. And uh we will take one last question uh which is the question about the API. Is there an API to access and use the data in other application environments such as Google Earth Engine or Python?
>> Sorry. Is uh yeah is there am I uh there is um uh an API I mean a tool to access to download the data uh in Python which is the copy and marine toolbox. uh you can use it uh in common line or in directly in uh in Python code uh to uh select your data and download the data on the the area of interest and also the the temporal coverage and so on. There are a lot of uh documentation of on this tool.
So you you should uh you should uh search for copenusmarine toolbox.
>> Yes, I just uh shared the link in the chat to an introduction about the toolbox if you want to have a look at this uh very um useful tool. So uh sorry we don't have uh any more time to answer questions. Uh we'll answer these in the postevent report. Thank you very much Tony for your presentation and demonstration and answering all these questions. Uh we will now go to uh our next uh speakers.
Um >> who Thank you very much. Um who are uh Stephanie Lass and Mara from Children for the Oceans. uh they will be telling us a little bit more about uh how children for the oceans uses copernicus marine and market ocean uh data and tools to raise students awareness about ocean protection. So uh the floor is yours whenever you're ready.
>> Okay. Thank you very much Marina and maybe I will ask Maran to share the presentation.
Yes, of course. Can you all see me?
>> We can't see you. Oh, yeah. We can now.
Yeah. All good.
>> Okay. So, I'm going to share my presentation right now.
>> Yeah. Perfect.
>> So, can you >> Thank you very much.
>> Yes.
>> Okay. So good morning everybody and and thank you very much for welcoming us today. Uh we're very pleased to present children for the ocean our work with young people and more specifically how we use scientific tools developed by Mercur Ocean International and Copernicus Marine Services in our awareness session.
Um next slide please. Um so children for the ocean is a NGO dedicated to ocean education and youth engagement. Today our objective um uh is not only uh to present what we do but also to show um to show you how scientific data can become can become powerful tools uh when it is made uh visual accessible and inspiring for for students.
So about our NGO um uh children for the ocean was uh founded in 2018.
Um after a sailing expedition around the Atlantic led by our founder um Toma and this journey was the the starting point of a simple uh conviction. Um if we want to protect the ocean, we first need to help young people understand it, feel it and and connected it and realize that the daily actions matter. So our mission is built around three main pillars objectives.
First uh we raise awareness among children and teenager about ocean protection. Uh second we train a community of young ambassadors giving them the scientific contact and pedagogical tool. Um they need to speak to other people. And third uh we represent um youth voices in major international ocean events so that young people are not only learners but also are very active participants in ocean protection.
Um next slide please. Yeah, some key figures. So, u since it creation, children for the ocean have has reached more than 3,000 students reach in more than 10 countries. Um we have now a community of 25 ambassadors uh across Europe, the Americas and Asia. Uh these numbers are important because they show that our model can travel and young people can speak to young people in schools, events and local communities uh using a common scientific and educational framework. We have also developed several of what we call flagship protection projects for example core reef for children um which helps students understand the role of coral reef and the threats they face. Um we have also created an interactive workshop on marine protected areas where student take the role of different stakeholders and debates uh protection measures. More recently, we um we have developed uh a project called children for the Mediterranean Sea and uh we also uh participate to major ocean events such as uh United Nation Ocean Conference in Nice in 2025.
Next slide, please. So, our impact uh is based on two main ideas. The first one is peer-to-peer education. young people speaking to young people. This create a very different atmosphere from a traditional classroom lecture. Students often feel more comfortable asking questions, reacting and sharing u their own ideas. But this youthto youth format is supported by solid scientific content especially through our partnership with organizations such as Mercur Ocean International and the Blue World Institute.
The second idea is inspiring.
Inspiration.
We do not only want uh students to learn facts about the ocean. We want them to become curious to care and to feel that they can act. For many students, the ocean remains distance and abstract especially when they do do not live near the coast. So our role is really to make the ocean visible, understandable and emotionally meaningful.
So I let the floor to uh Maha for the rest of the presentation. Thank you.
>> Yep, of course. So um thank you Stephanie. So first of all before moving on to our approach um how do we approach these awareness sessions, I'm going to present myself. So my name is Maran. Um I'm a children for the ocean ambassadors uh based in VH uh and currently doing my studies in Leiden University College. Um and so our approach is uh simple. It's understand alert and act. So we first need to ask to ask um why do we need the ocean to understand? So this allows us to explain um how deeply human societies depend on the ocean notably for climate regulation for oxygen production as 50% of the oxygen um comes directly from the ocean food transport biodiversity and also livelihoods. But then we ask and this is the alert part. What threats does the ocean face? Um and so here we introduce major issues uh not all of them evidently such as acification, over fishing, plastic pollution, climate change and ecosystem degradation and this is key. And finally we ask um what can we do at our level and this last part is pretty essential in our winner sessions. It's um the part basically where we want students um to leave a session not only with concern but also with ideas u for example reducing plastic use changing uh consumption habits and one of the most important parts is sharing what they learn. So from word to mouth um to the parents uh and and to their friends sharing basically what they learn the curious the curiosity uh it provoked and um understanding that small actions can contribute to a wider collective effort and this is key and so here we arrive to really I would say the heart of a presentation. So the question is what Merkadar Ocean International and Capernacus maring services uh make possible? Well, I would answer simply that the tools um are extremely valuable to us because they help transform a complex ocean science into something students can actually see. And so what are we talking about right now? We're talking about ocean currents. We're talking about uh chlorophile concentration, sea ice, temperature or plastic dispersion. Um and this these these factors can be difficult to explain with words alone. Uh but when students really see this phenomena on a map through animation or visual layers, the ocean then becomes much more concrete. And so for a classroom, this changes everything. Um um students no longer only learn about the ocean as being a distant let's say um mass uh which represents 70% of our of our globe but it becomes it becomes real. They observe the ocean and so the object becomes data becomes a map. Um the map raises questions and those questions lead to actions. And this is exactly what we try to do at Children for the Ocean is basically to turn scientific information into a visual accessible and motivating um educational experience.
And so now um I'm going to uh pretty much um illustrate um how we make possible um the the Copenicus mind services um u um um how we we visualize them and how we uh present them through our sessions. Uh first of all we get questions uh from uh when we go to primary schools about the ocean currents about the Gulf Stream.
What is it? Well, we simply show um this animation by by uh finished by Meatar Ocean Cernicus Marine Services which shows uh in red the the the hot currents and uh in blue uh the the cold currents located beneath the water. Um and here this animation is actually key is not only showing the the world currents.
It's key to show that first of all there are no real borders uh within the ocean and and what happens in one region actually uh can have consequences elsewhere because water masses, heat, nutrients, animals and pollution move across uh the planet. Uh and we have notably a second animation uh with um um the my ocean learn um platform um showing us helping students understand why basically this ocean protection needs to be treated as internationally as um as as a global issue and not um notably not only reserved to uh one country. But then we have other tools such as the chlorophyll index. So understanding life in the ocean. So this is one of the best way to help students understand where life begins in the ocean because we can see that the concentration of chlorophyll um in a certain region and also to help understand that fishing does not only happen um at the the middle of the Atlantic Ocean for example. It often happens near the coast um and also near marine protected areas. And so it means that protecting uh fish stocks is not only about um limiting fishing but it is about um how to protect habitats, food webs and the ecological conditions that allow marine life to recover and thrive.
But then we have other other tools which we show this this one I love because um students often ask us um what is the the seventh um um continent um on earth?
What what what does it mean? I don't understand. Apparently, there's a plastic continent in northern Pacific.
And so, here with this animation, we can really show how, for example, dropping um a plastic bottle um in in Tuloo when it takes Varon uh and when it ends up in in the Gulf of of Gasia, how does it end up in the middle of the Atlantic? And so I think this animation is key with notably uh the timeline with the months and the year to to show um how um the idea of plastic continents can be misunderstood. Um it it's it's it's also it comes from everywhere and it's with the global ocean currents that it forms sort of um jir which we call in France uh uh but these these um these plastic continents and this helps students understand that plastic um pollution is not a local problem only it's actually a global issue shaped by human behavior by waste management and by ocean circulation but Um then we also love to to show uh this animation. Um so this one is um um presented by um the new tool uh editor um from from meat ocean which they are developing. Um and and um we're looking forward notably to to working with with these tool. But this I think is really essential because in our awareness sessions we tend to ask the students where do you think the most um the most plastic the the where do you think the the majority of the plastic from the ocean comes from? Um and and here it is actually um um we we we know that it is from the coast uh with notably a pinpoint of of Italy. Um but we also learned that it is 20% um of plastic comes from the rivers. And so when we when we say that oh my god I live 200 kilometers from from the ocean. I have no um I I I have no impact on the ocean.
Well, in fact you do because um with rivers with water points uh it is all connected and uh here we learned that for example um um 879 uh tons of plastic um in in 2018 uh from April 1st to to May 1st comes um from from uh came from from rivers. And so this is really essential um uh with with understanding where the plastic comes from and how it is not only uh beach pollution but it is city pollution. Um so this is key to understand and I think um and I think um we are done here with with a time um and I would like to thank you all and we're open uh for for questions. Uh thank you.
Great. Thank you very much for uh this uh wonderful presentation. We received a few questions for you. So I will start sharing my screen.
>> Okay.
>> Um okay. I think we received the same question a few times. Um so the first one is how can I sign my school up?
You're you're muted, Stephanie. We can't hear you.
>> The the best way is to um to write uh an email um to Children for the Ocean and uh and just letting uh letting us know your interest and uh your willingness to organize an awareness session in your school. And then after depending on um uh schedule constraint and uh we try to to do our best uh to uh to organize such a session.
>> Okay. Um and uh we shared the link to the to the website uh in the chat. Uh if you want to also send us the the email address you just mentioned.
>> Yeah, I will send it in the in the in the discussion in the chat.
>> Perfect. Thank you very much. Uh the next question is how can my students become ambassadors for children for the oceans?
>> Um >> so sorry.
>> Yeah, please go ahead.
>> I can I can answer. So it's really simple. Uh it's it's it can pass by many contact points. We usually get um contacts from Instagram also. We have an Instagram account uh following what we do. But the I think the easiest option is on our website. Um I think there's a link in the chat. Um it's um there's a join us um button and and you can basically write an email uh and and we provide the training um and and uh regular calls to organize sessions and yeah >> great thank you. Next question is how do we register for the interactive workshop? If it's possible, could you please kindly provide Oh, can you put the question back please? But the question is how do we uh sign up for the workshops you mentioned during the presentation?
>> Oh okay. So so regarding the the marine protected areas. So it's the same than awareness session meaning we need to to to schedule them. um uh for marine protected areas we need more ambassadors because it's uh it takes longers. It's the a session of generally 2 hours and a half and um so and it's dedicated to um I would say uh teenagers and not uh students from primary school. It's uh because you have definitely it's a interactive game so they have really to play a role and u so it's uh it's much more active and require much more involvement from the students so that's why we recommend um doing uh such a interactive game uh for I would say uh students um of 16 uh 15 16 17 years Okay, thank you.
Um, next question is um, does children uh, for the ocean do training for other students? I feel like you've answered this question already, but I don't know if there's anything that you'd like to add.
That's that's really the key principle and key concept of the children for the ocean meaning it's youth speaking to youth. So that's why uh a large part of our work is really to coach and to train these uh students these uh young people to be to to help them uh be ready to deliver such awareness sessions.
>> Okay. Um, how do you overcome climate change anxiety amongst children? I guess this is quite a big question.
>> Yeah, it it's a big question. Maybe I can I can answer this because I feel a bit concerned. Um, as I'm I'm not going to lie, I had big periods where I I had big doubts about um and I constantly have have doubts about um the future about climate change and very often anxiety what you call anxiety. But I think that the most um let's say viable and and um action is is to actually um act upon it to actually um feel like you're adding your grain to um the the monumental um uh action and and um how can I say this? Um to to the great the greater um um the greater good. Um but it's it's I think it's really hard but I think that the most viable solution is yeah to to act and this is why um I'm now involved in in children for the ocean is because during these awareness sessions um in in front of of the youth I feel this kind of hope um amongst the children um and and about um this sort of um general awareness of the issue making it um um better for for for for for the upcoming generation which will be more um um more sensible to the climate change um problem. I would say this. Yeah.
>> Yeah. Maybe one one last point. It's just um um the fact that it's youth speaking to youth. Uh it's uh it's a way uh to make them realize that they can act and they can go to school and and and and and uh and share their views and share their willingness and what they want and it's a yeah it's action and empowering this the the youth is I think the best way to fight against uh climate change anxiety.
Great. Thank you very much. I would just like to take the two last questions that were on the screens um because the time is almost up. So, uh the first one is are there any open-source platforms or toolkits you provide for educators to customize ocean data lessons?
Um that that's true that uh for the time being we do not have uh such customized tool or toolkits. uh this customized tool these tool kits are more for uh young people and uh we really try to uh to make young people intervene into classrooms. That's the the concept and uh for sure we are really uh open to uh to organize even vio with educators or teachers uh to help them because definitely what we realize is that in the curriculum um there is not enough uh information on ocean and usually when we intervene when young people intervene many teachers let us know that uh they they did not know uh so so they did not know so much about ocean before and uh and they realize uh I mean the lack in educa in educational curriculum >> great uh and that's actually the last question that I wanted to address to you was about uh is there any conversation around actually integrating these amazing ways of learning in the school curriculum. So I feel like you've kind of answered already. I don't know if there's anything else you'd like to mention.
I saw yeah I saw a question on the funding. So definitely it's a it's a crucial uh question for us and we really depend on the donation uh because all our awareness session are on a free of char basis. So we go to school on a first child basis usually uh and so we really rely on donations. Um so that's the way u the NGO is funded and we do not want school uh to pay for such awareness session because usually they can't afford it. So that's why our model is not so obvious but uh it's the way we have decided at the beginning.
>> Okay. Well, thank you very much to both of you for uh this great presentation um and for answering all the questions from our participants. We might send you a few questions to answer after the event in written form because we received many. Uh so thank you again for presenting the organization and I think you mentioned as well you have an Instagram page. So uh don't hesitate to go follow this page for more information on uh children for the oceans as well.
Thank you again Stephanie and Mara for the presentation.
Um so we will now go to our next pe uh next and last speaker uh who is uh Janice Andraidis from the University of the Agent who's a professor and physical oceanographer and uh Yanis is going to tell us about how he integrates uh copernicus marine data and tools into teaching uh and especially um uh related to topics of extreme weather and ocean hazards. So yeah, the floor is yours.
>> Thank you very much, Marin. Can you hear me?
>> Yes, we can hear you very well.
>> Great. Thank you very very much for inviting me here and I'm delightful to speak to such a large global audience.
This is great. Uh my name is Jan Sandro Lidakis. I'm a physicalographer and associate professor in the department of marine sciences in Levos Island University of the Aian in Greece. and I will uh present some applications that uh we developed for uh in for the courses here in department of marine sciences. Uh I will uh first of all I would like to present some uh uh information about uh how we use uh uh marine service copernicus data for our uh work here uh both for research and uh for teaching. Uh first of all as physical oceanographers we are very interested in the sea surface temperature data satellite derived. This is for uh to to investigate and uh study climate change effects and interran variability, marine heat wave formations and uh variability and also applications with biochemical and biological properties and of course we use this data for data simulation in our ocean and forecasting modeling. uh of we also use sea level data uh for also from satellites for many applications uh for especially for sea level alterations uh along the coast and uh implications with hazards like uh storm surges and coastal immutation and flooding uh especially during extreme events. Uh we also use sea level for uh investigating uh uh the ocean circulation and interconnection between uh marginal seas like in our area here between Black Sea and the Aian. And we also uh finally we also use this for data simulation again in uh in modeling and uh ocean color data like the ones that uh already presented before uh in this uh web seminar chlorophyll concentrations. This is for implications between physical processes and drivers and uh uh and biochemical uh biological uh processes and uh for river plume dynamics and and also for biochemical modeling and finally we also use uh and lot of numerical data that are available in the copernicus uh store and uh these are related mainly to to to develop boundary conditions for our numerical simulations uh both for hydrodnamic and biochemical and also for lagranian numerical simulations for pollution uh applications larvae dispersion etc. And of course these data are also used for investigation of vertical physical processes because all the others are satellite and are mainly uh focused on the they are study the surface of the ocean and we also need information about the water column. So we use this type of data for this reason for both as I said for research and physical activities but today I will focus on an example of a course that uh I have introduced uh the last semester is a new course in this uh in the program that I teach here in this in the university and uh this is undergraduate level uh for the fourth year the last year of the study.
And uh you can see here the main uh components of of of the course uh where we have lectures and computational applications in laboratory and computer laboratory where students uh use software and available data sets especially from Copernicus marine system and uh we use this to uh to to to they use this to assess their projects uh during this uh course.
Uh these are the main outcomes of the course. This first of all is uh uh to explain the dynamics of extreme and ocean atmospheric events, ocean atmospheric interactions and uh hazards like storm surges to we also talk about tsunamis. is another hazard. Of course, marine heat waves and uh we analyze the physical mechanisms like the low pressure systems, atmospheric low pressure systems, the storm intensification and uh we interpreted the real time historical data sets. This is where the data from Copernicus came into the uh into the teaching activity and uh students also apply numerical modeling techniques uh and evaluate the vulnerability of coastal environments and infrastructure. They also discuss the influence of climate change and we go now to policies frameworks. uh we talk a lot about uh the usage and the development of early warning systems and the importance of them and uh this the important thing is that this is a course that synthesize knowledge from different disciplines like of course physical but also topics from meteorology, climate science and uh finally coastal engineering for the solutions in the coastal zone. uh they they the students have to do a a project. Uh each student they have a has a a study area that works on and uh so they do uses independent investigations and uh they also uh train in practical skills uh the use of observational remote sensing and modeling tools to monitor and predict extreme hazards. Uh these are the main scientific topics.
The storms and low pressure systems of course marine heat waves both their physical mechanisms and the detection of these events and also the impacts on the ecosystem.
Uh coastal flooding and erosion especially during extreme events. Uh we also talk about climate change in the in the intensification of ocean hazards.
for example, the intensification of storms and like the we mainly focus on the Mediterranean Sea and uh so we talk a lot about uh the uh tropical like storms uh we call them medicanes these are storms very severe storms storms for the Mediterranean Sea we talk about storm surges and coastal flooding and of course the the the increase of marit waves intensity and duration under climate change conditions.
Uh and finally we talk about the mitigation preparedness and policy measures and and strategies.
And uh let's go now to the first application that I want to show that uh we we do with the students during the semester. uh it's about the sea surface temperature and marine heat waves variability.
The students have to download sea surface temperature especially the satellite from observations are available in the copernicus marine system and uh they have to do a lot of statistical uh analysis and cleaties and uh and uh define thresholds that they're going to be used for the detection of marine heat waves based mainly on the methodology that was introduced 10 years ago by hope day. So they learn all of this all of these uh uh let's say uh aspects the climate variability in general and they focus on extreme events. They also use uh different softwares and codes for data processing. And of course the most important is the physical interpretation. For example, how the temperature variability is related to other processes like certification, heat fluxes and airc interactions uh between the sea and the atmosphere.
uh the so each student has to choose a Mediterranean coastal region and gather all the data uh for uh his or her uh region uh like of course uh uh some topographic information and of course for this temperature we use this uh product uh which is a relatively high resolution product is around 5 kilometers and uh but it's daily and it covers a long uh more than 40 years from 1982 until today and uh first of all they can use uh uh very simple tools like the panoply software which is available from NASA freely it's a open software that is can be used for both uh visualization like this example here in the northern Aian or also can they can also extract data from this uh with this software for more processing.
Uh but uh we also develop some simple scripts with MATLAB or other languages other codes for more uh uh let's say uh in in inepth analysis. Uh so they can they they compute uh uh uh several uh uh metrics uh statistical metrics and they do also some climatologies. They produce some climatologies and uh finally they can do uh they can detect the extreme years during their time series and also compute uh trends and the respective statistical significance. This is an example for this is a coastal area in North Aian. This is from a student's uh project. Uh so you can see the climat the different climatologies that uh uh this student produced which is uh for different percentiles for example and also interranual variability for this region uh where we can see the trend the spec the respective sense slope. This is uh 0.04 Celsius per year for this area. And uh also other statistical metrics like uh uh find if there is a shift here where the time series is shows a significant increase or decrease a significant change. And uh they can also detect the most extreme year where they can perform like here more analysis. This is 2024 which was a very warm year for the global ocean but especially for Mediterranean and uh it was uh significantly warm.
Uh and finally they can uh apply they learn how to apply the detection of parit waves and algorithm that we develop based on the methodology by Hobday and this is an example this the number of events for the same area and this is the cumulative intensity which is a very important metric because it includes both the number of events and uh the the intensity and the duration.
So it's a a more holistic statistical metric for marine heat waves. More information about these events. I'm not going to go to the details of the methodology. It can be found easily everywhere. Uh and uh and let's go to the second application that I would like to present. This is about uh storms, surges and coastal hazards. This is an example of a storm. Uh here the students uh they use uh other sources uh together with the copernicus marine data uh for this is from the climate data stored from copernicus. This is the ECMWF era 5 for atmospheric conditions and they use it to detect and get the atmospheric materological conditions during a storm that they choose that has affected their study area. This is a medicane in 2020 that formed in the Onian Sea and landfall in the western Greece with severe uh damages.
Uh in this case we also go to the myiosium pro. This we already saw this in a previous uh presentation. Uh so the students can use this type of tool. Uh this is an example. Uh this is for the same stormos bed 2020 and uh this is before the storm where they can draw here a line uh and get the information along the line. This line actually represents the storms track. So each student has a different storm, different track. So they get different uh conclusions and results. And this is before the storm and shows how warm the sea was during the evolution that uh this uh enhanced the intensification of the storm because the fueled the the storm got more energy and it discuss we discuss this type of interactions and this is the winds this with the same tool from OSA and pro and this is finally during the storm you can see the the the the cyclonic uh wind conditions and uh this is uh the detection the response on the sea to the detection of cold wakes. This is a cold wake on the tail of the storm and uh and uh together with this data we they also uh trained how to use uh modeling data from copernicus. This is the Mediterranean sea physics reanalysis. This is the product uh which provides more information about the ocean. This is during the event. This is a surface height which is very important during this type of events especially when it landfalls. This is in the end of the of the track where you can see the high curface heights along the coast. So it's important that they use this data together with other available sources.
This is tight gods data. This is sea level measurements along in many stations that are available online and uh so the students have to choose a station that is very close to their study area. For example, this storm here, this station here during the same storm that I presented before produced this increase in the sea level and we and we compare this with the modeling data. So we can see uh the if there are some errors in the data in the modeling simulations.
And uh finally the the the goal is to to to detect the inudation areas during the storm's surge. And so they use also OAN color data from the Copernicus browser.
You can see here an example where they compute this index which is very useful to detect areas on the on the coast that they have been uh probably have been flooded uh during a a a strong event like the one that I presented before.
The white areas are the areas that before and after the storm that they probably were flooded during this uh storm. And uh they also use ocean and meological data together for long-term analysis. This is uh for many years. So they can do some trends with this data and also relate them to other data like climatic indexes like North Atlantic oscillation and see the the the contribution of uh atmospheric conditions and climatological conditions on the response in the ocean. These are some examples. These are results from different students. This is for the North Atlantic oscillation and the pressure over the study area. This is during a storm the pre the atmospheric pressure and the sea level. You can see the uh counter correlation between the two uh uh metrics parameters. This is temperature and radiations and this is in the annual variability of pressure and sea level anomaly for the students uh project. And finally I would like to present another application that we do.
This is uh using oian color data in uh and this is an example that we are trained in the course for to detect the the black sea water out. This is the norian where you have the black sea water coming. So we use this data to detect uh the the the the spreading of these waters which are high in chlorophyll and uh they can we can also use them to detect pollution events because that like the 2002 very strong mush bloom that uh affected the a very large area and so this is again with my ocean pro.
This is the chlorophyll a concentrations for an extended uh black sea water plume spreading in the north. This is a limited case and we and the students can use this together with uh o with Okay, thank you very much, Yanice.
Sorry, my camera was um so thank you very much for your presentation. Uh we've received quite a lot of questions for you actually. So I'm going to start sharing my screen uh straight away.
Um okay so the first question is um I am studying marine biology in Greece. I really enjoyed your presentation. I would like to ask how reliable are satellite data in coastal areas.
We we can't hear you anymore. I don't know what happened.
Can you hear me now?
>> Uh yes, we can. Yeah.
>> Uh okay. Sorry about this. Uh yeah. Uh the Yeah, this is a this is uh true depending on the satellite uh data for example uh and the and their resolutions. There are some uh improvement the last years for the coastal satellite data and that uh uh has have improved their quality in the coastal zone. For example, coastal altimemetry techniques they have improved the sea level data that during the first year of the altimery let's say era that they were not very reliable because there is some noise from the land contamination and uh I would say that especially very close to the coast this type of data have to be used with uh very careful way you see.
>> Okay. Yeah. Thank you very much. Um the next question is I think this one was asked quite at the beginning of your presentation so I think you kind of answered but if you could uh um repeat or tell us a bit more which opensource modeling tools are the students using?
Yeah, they uh they can use they first of all they use the panoplip which is a software that uh is provided by NASA.
You can find it also in the Noah the US uh uh service available for free. Uh with this uh software you can easily visualize your data and you can export uh ASKI files from there. You can process them more with uh for example uh Excel or another open office uh software like this. And of course we but also we can we we develop some codes and scripts in free uh software but easy ones that pe the students can use to process more their data in more in depth and then can be done with the panop software but also we they can also use the online data the software ware that are available with a service of Copernico service that uh you can do quite a lot of visualization and sections and uh which are very useful for the analysis and interpretation of the results the data.
>> Great. Thank you. Um next question is are your lectures available on any MOO platforms?
Uh, >> looks like you're >> I'm not sure what MO means.
>> It's a massive open online course. So, do you do you only teach at the university or do you also develop uh teaching materials for online studies?
>> Uh yes, I have I have used some of this material for seminars and uh that I have participated in the past. But uh especially this course is is a very new one. So it needs a lot of improvements.
uh and uh I I also learn from the students feedback because I it's the last semester was the first one that I ever taught this specific course uh especially with this uh structure and uh so uh I and these lectures are available in the e-learning class uh platform of the university only so only the students that are here can access them but I'm will be happy to share it if somebody can send me an email and okay great thank you for this uh actually there's a question kind of related to oh I don't see it anymore but uh the next question is uh do you make use of recognition neural networks with the copernicus data at all not I understand this question.
>> Do you make use of recognition of neural networks?
Uh if I use neural networks with data, this is the question.
>> I'm not quite sure but uh we could say that this is the question.
>> Not for the course, not for the class.
But of course, yes, we use Copernicus data to train uh neural networks for uh for many research activities and like temperature to to to train a model for uh uh for uh for predictions and uh but uh not for teaching activities, not myself at least.
>> Okay, great. Thank you very much for your answer. So, um I think uh we won't have time to answer any more question.
The time is up already. So, thank you very much for uh and I feel like also some of the questions could uh uh need uh very long answers and could be kind of a a course >> to answer offline later send.
>> Thank you very much. Yeah, we will send you all the questions that we weren't able to to answer just now. So, um once again, thank you very much for your presentation, for answering the questions. uh and I will just share a few uh more information before we wrap up the session. Um so once again thank you very much to our speakers for your presentations today. Uh we shared a lot of different tools a lot of different information. Um, so don't hesitate to have a look at the replay that we uh that we will made a make available on the Copernicus Marine YouTube uh channels a bit later today or tomorrow.
Um I feel like this could be very useful to to watch again.
Um, so you'll find the replay session also on the event website as well as uh a a link to um the survey about uh this webinar. So please uh fill out the survey to let us know what you thought of it, whether you're uh already familiar with the copernicus marine service. If you've used the data before, this is uh very valuable information to us to make sure that um we meet your needs in terms of training sessions.
Um and if you'd like to go further after today's session, I encourage you to visit the Copernicus Marine Service YouTube channel where you will find a rich library of webinars and training sessions from the past few years.
They're all freely available of course and you can also uh discover uh all Copernicus marine events both upcoming and past via the events tab in the top right menu of the website where you can find uh any um where you can open any event page for details and registrations. So I I saw a a question about whether we do only online training sessions. We do a lot of these. So this is where you will find information about all the other events as well where the copernicus marine service is u participating or uh organizing.
So thank you again um for uh your participation today. If you enjoyed today's webinar, we encourage you to help us spread the word about ocean sessions by by sharing your experience on social media. Don't forget to tag the Copernicus Marine Service in your post uh if you if you can do so. Thank you to everyone who attended today's event and we look forward to welcoming you to the next one. Have a great rest of the day.
Bye everyone.
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