12 minute read
One Ocean – Our Future
Wonders and warnings
How do you even begin to interpret climate change for a museum audience? And how do you demonstrate, in an authoritative and accessible way, the impacts of global warming on the maritime world? Richard Wood explains how the museum tackled this complex and sensitive topic when developing its newest exhibition.
An Apolemia siphonophore observed off Western Australia, possibly the longest creature ever seen. All images courtesy Schmidt Ocean Institute unless otherwise stated
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IN DECEMBER 2019, the Schmidt Ocean Institute’s Research Vessel (RV) Falkor visited the museum’s wharves before departing on a voyage of nine expeditions into the furthest reaches of our part of the ocean. This visit kick-started a process that would culminate in our new exhibition One Ocean – Our Future.
Using advanced technology, particularly Falkor’s remotely operated submarine SuBastian, scientists from Australia, the USA and many other nations would discover, collect and analyse species and map seascapes never before seen (see previous article). At a meeting aboard Falkor, Carlie Weiner, the Schmidt Ocean Institute’s Director of Communications and Engagement Strategy, offered to sponsor the museum to create a 3D interactive virtual aquarium using this unique footage. From this impetus grew the exhibition. The stunning 4K (4,000 pixel wide) resolution vision that streamed live from SuBastian had the potential to transfix even the most blasé viewer, particularly when enhanced with the sound of the unfettered excitement of scientists as they encountered a new wonder. This expression of sheer amazement at the ocean provided the hook on which to hang the more serious aspects of the exhibition. A small exhibition team worked intensively over the next two years (the process disrupted by two major Covid-19 lockdowns) to research and collect objects, data and stories for the exhibition. We developed an interpretive strategy that would both entertain and inform our visitors without preaching or scare-mongering about the impending crisis facing our ocean. We also aligned our efforts with the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021–2030) and the fundamental principles of ‘ocean literacy’ – a strategy for increasing awareness and understanding of the ocean’s influence on us, and our influence on the ocean – which is crucial to living and acting sustainably. What easier way to engage visitors about the ocean than to let them delight in some of SuBastian’s most spectacular discoveries, projected onto a massive screen? These wonders range from a 1-centimetre-long seahorse clinging to a strand of seaweed to a massive, swirling Apolemia siphonophore, a colony of identical individual zooids that scientists estimated at 120 metres in length, possibly the longest creature ever seen. And to follow, in a 3D virtual aquarium visitors can closely examine ‘living’ specimens of the short-tail catshark, an elusive ram’s horn squid, everyone’s favourite dumbo octopus, a creepily faceless cusk eel and a mesmerising nautilus. All these digital creatures are controlled by gesture rather than touch, to suit Covid requirements, and were co-developed with Dan Novy, a research scientist at the MIT Media Lab in Boston, USA. For small-screen aficionados, we designed the SeaMe game, an ‘ocean personality’ quiz using QR codes (we all know how to use them now!). The game assigns attributes of the ocean to the player, and offers a selfie opportunity in the form of a spectacular backdrop of the relative moods and aspects of the ocean. But now to some more alarming matters. Developing an exhibition around the contemporary topic of global warming, climate change and the ocean, based on mainly statistical evidence, was a challenge for a museum which, after all, deals mainly in material culture. The impacts of global warming on the ocean are felt around the world, particularly among First Nations communities of Oceania. Artworks by First Nations artists from the museum’s collection and on loan form the spine of the exhibition.
01 Dumbo octopus are deep-sea umbrella octopuses, which move by slowly flapping their ear-like fins.
02 Some of the specimens available for virtual examination in the 3D aquarium: cusk eel, nautilus, ram’s horn squid and short-tail catshark. 3D renderings by Dan Novy
01 Billboards announce and investigate the relationship between the exhibition’s themes, the ocean, our lives and global warming. 02 A Continuous Plankton Recorder being installed in the exhibition. For the past 80 years this CPR has been measuring the ocean’s smallest inhabitants – plankton – as a guide to the health of the world’s seas.
ANMM images
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Science
Technology enables scientists and researchers to measure and understand the intricate and complex interconnections between the ocean and humans.
The ocean is largely unexplored. It remains so despite hydrographers having systematically measured, mapped and analysed parts of it over the past 200 years to ensure the safety of marine traffic. They map the coastlines and the sea floor and measure sea level, ocean currents, temperature and salinity. Biological and physical oceanographers investigate the biology, chemistry, physical attributes and geology of the ocean in the quest to understand ocean health and how it changes, and the organisms that live in the sea. These stories share the ways that we use the ocean, and explain how science and technology is used to measure and predict human-caused climate changes.
Fresh Water Skin Disease
Gippsland Lakes Victoria
Over five months from September 2019, six rare Burrunan dolphins in the Gippsland Lakes, Victoria, died. All had discoloured ulcers on their skin, similar to third-degree burns in humans. Fresh Water Skin Disease (FWSD) results after fresh water suddenly flows into saltwater ecosystems. This disrupts the electrolytes in the dolphins’ bloodstream, leading to organ failure and skin lesions that become infected. Dr Nahiid Stephen, Lead Researcher and Lecturer in Veterinary Pathology at Murdoch University, attributes the increase in dolphin death from FWSD to changing weather patterns and climate change.
Leeuwin was an adult female Burrunan dolphin. This close-up of her right pectoral fin was taken shortly after she died in the Swan River, Western Australia. It shows both the FWSD skin lesions and a fishing line entangled around her pectoral fin.
Image courtesy Dr Simon Allen, University of Western Australia
FathomNet
Monterey Bay CA, USA
The Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) is developing FathomNet, an online platform that collates the deluge of ocean-based visual data being collected globally by autonomous programs and machines. It will collect data in order to train machine-learning algorithms. These will provide fast, sophisticated analysis of visual data that will lead to greater understanding of the wonders of the ocean and its inhabitants, and to more effective marine stewardship.
MBARI’s FathomNet correctly identifies individual examples as being of the same species.
Image courtesy Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute National Sea Simulator
Townsville Queensland
The Australian Institute of Marine Science National Sea Simulator (SeaSim) in Townsville, Queensland, provides state-of-the-art aquarium facilities for research into tropical marine organisms. Using SeaSim, Australian and international scientists conduct large-scale long-term experiments in which they manipulate key environmental inputs to mimic complex environmental change and measure how species react.
SeaSim can mimick natural coral spawning conditions.
Image courtesy Australian Institute of Marine Science. Photo: © Budd Photography
Coastalerosion
Beachport South Australia
Beachport in South Australia has lost about 135 metres of sand to erosion since the 1940s. Flinders University researchers have developed a GPS-controlled robotic vessel with sonar to record the depth and movement of sand around the town’s beaches. Understanding how the ocean erodes and transports sand gives scientists a tool for predicting and managing the impacts of future sea level rise along our coast.
Autonomous robotic vessels, controlled by GPS, are used to collect data on coastal erosion.
Photo: Isadora Bogle Ecosystemcollapse
Australia
Research by scientists from Australia’s Wollongong, Deakin and Macquarie Universities, plus the University of Exeter (UK), has identified 19 Australian ecosystems as being ‘in collapse’ and unlikely to recover. They include marine systems of the Murray–Darling River basin, mangroves of northern Australia, the Great Barrier Reef, Shark Bay on the Western Australian coast, kelp forests of southern Australia and moss beds in Antarctica.
Over the last few years, the Great Barrier Reef has suffered consecutive mass bleaching events, which have weakened coral polyps and made them susceptible to disease, and hence more likely to die.
Shutterstock 108490289 Satellites and AI
Plymouth UK
Satellite data paired with artificial intelligence (AI) is being used to help researchers at the Plymouth Marine Laboratory (UK) spot accumulations of plastic in the ocean. The system uses high-resolution images from two satellites, processed by an algorithm that detects the specific wavelengths of light that plastic reflects. This enables plastic waste to be clearly picked out from surrounding organic material.
Satellite image of Henderson Island, part of the Pitcairn Island Group in the South Pacific. A recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA) reported that the island’s beaches hold the highest density of plastic waste in the world.
Image courtesy NASA Earth Observatory. Photo: Jesse Allen Thinner plankton shells
London UK
Rising global levels of atmospheric carbon-dioxide gas (CO2) dissolve in the ocean, rendering it more acidic. This can make it difficult for marine calcifying organisms, such as coral and some plankton, to make their shells and skeletons.
Researchers at London’s Kingston University and Science Museum compared the shells of Neogloboquadrina dutertrei and Globigerinoides ruber plankton collected on the HMS Challenger expedition (1872–76) with specimens collected from the same places on a 2009–13 Tara Oceans expedition. They found the more recent specimens had consistently thinner shells – some up to 76 per cent thinner.
Computerised tomography scan comparing plankton shell thickness over the past 130 years.
Image courtesy Dr Lyndsey Fox, Dr Stephen Stukins, Dr Thomas Hill and Dr C Giles Miller
Tardigrades
BangaloreIndia
Tardigrades, colloquially known as ‘water bears’ or ‘moss piglets’, are almost microscopic animals with long, plump bodies and scrunched-up heads. The Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, India, has discovered a species of tardigrade that might have the ability to protect itself from potentially lethal amounts of ultraviolet (UV) light. They appear to process UV light into a fluorescent blue glow, but how they do it and whether this applies to all species of the tiny organism is unknown.
The study also supports previous work showing that substances produced by these creatures can possibly protect other organisms from harmful environmental conditions, such as increased UV radiation linked to climate change.
Tardigrades are typically 0.5–1 millimetres long when fully grown.
Shutterstock 1055532119
Background image: Scientists on the deck of research vessel RV Falkor. Number of research voyages Science at sea
250+
14 13 26
1873–1914 1925-1940 1947-1960 1961-present
Representative list of research vessels used in oceanographic deep-sea research (1873–present)
(Represented nations from period 1873–1960 include Norway, Germany, Denmark, USA, Netherlands, Britain, Monaco, Russia, Japan, Sweden, Argentina and Scotland. Represented nations from period 1961–present include Argentina, Australia, Bangladesh, Belgium, Bermuda, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, India, Iran, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Lebanon, Mauritania, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Turkey, Taiwan, United Kingdom, USA, Vietnam.)
Humans have mapped waterways and collected from the environment for as long as we have travelled the planet.
• From the early 19th century, research vessels explored oceans and engaged in mapping coastal lands, islands and ocean passages. • By the 1870s, oceanographic research and deep-sea biology took centre stage. • During the world wars, research pivoted to support wartime priorities. • Post-war, military vessels were often redeployed for oceanographic research. • In the mid to late 20th century, creation of new technologies allowed for deeper and sustained data collection.
• Now, there are more than 250 private and government-funded research vessels in operation. • In the future, autonomous technologies, more sustainable long-range ships, and underwater habitats – where scientists can stay underwater for up to three months – will ensure continuous scientific connection with the ocean.
Data sourced and periods adapted from ‘Georg Würst, The Major Deep-Sea Expeditions and Research Vessels, 1873–1960: A Contribution to the History of Oceanography’, Progress in Oceanography 2 (1964): 1–52
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The striking Ocean Sentinels – seven sculptures lent by Selena Griffith and Jeremy Sheehan – are the fourth in a series of works by the Small Ocean Collaboration. They highlight the social, cultural and environmental impact of human-caused climate change and plastics pollution across the Pacific region. Each sentinel is a traditional figure or totem representing First Nations communities in Australia, Papua New Guinea, Palau, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, Nukuoro Atoll and the Philippines. From this spine emerge the exhibition’s other major themes – Weather, Habitat, Science, Ice, Plastic and Progress. We created dramatic billboards to announce and investigate the relationship between these themes, the ocean, our lives and global warming. Each billboard holds short stories from across the globe, acknowledging scientific research as evidence of the way the ocean is changing. The billboards also include visualisations that interpret data about the ocean, ocean sciences and community attitudes in simplified graphic form. Sometimes an exhibition presents the museum with a unique opportunity to expand its collection. One Ocean – Our Future became the focus of determined systematic collecting, and as a result, a world-class record of a century and a half of oceanographic technology has been added. The theme of Ice is about the scientific analysis of ice as a record-keeper of climate and the impact that melting land-based ice has on the ocean environment – so what better focus than a real Antarctic ice core? Many months later, a freezer has been built and the Australian Antarctic Division is kindly lending us an ice core that dates from 1756 – the dawn of the industrial revolution that has so profoundly affected the ocean and our climate.1
As Signals goes to press the ice core is in Hobart awaiting transfer to Brisbane, where it will undergo gamma irradiation to ensure that any organisms locked in the ice are made harmless before it is released for display. Tying this panoply together, we developed an at-times eerie soundtrack that pervades the exhibition space. Populated with the voices of witnesses to how the ocean is changing – from Russia to Alaska and Australia to South America – it includes words of warning and wisdom from older champions of the ocean, such as Valerie Taylor AM, Sir David Attenborough, Sylvia Earle and HRH Prince Charles.
One Ocean – Our Future is the culmination of collaboration between the museum and Australian and international scientists, artists, filmmakers and media gurus, who worked together to reveal the treasures of the ocean and the threats to its – and our – future.
Richard Wood is the museum’s Senior Manager USA Programs.
1 The freezer’s 24-hour electricity consumption is offset by the power generated by the museum’s photovoltaic array on the roof of our Wharf 7 building (see Signals 128, September 2019).
One Ocean – Our Future is a USA Program supported by the USA Bicentennial Gift Fund. Sponsored by the Schmidt Ocean Institute.
