Recap discussion webinar: Oceanographic modeling and data needs to support marine life and ecosystem assessments

RWSC staff will summarize the discussions and next steps identified during two recent in-person workshops on this topic: one held in Maine and focused on the Gulf of Maine and the other held at State of the Science and focused on U.S. Atlantic waters. Participants in the workshops and other experts are invited to join this webinar to share their perspectives and brainstorm discrete actions that can advance an understanding of the oceanographic drivers of prey and megafauna distribution and movement.

The purpose of this webinar is to bring all who are interested in this topic up to speed, given that the workshop venues and timing may have limited participation in each previous session. All RWSC Subcommittees will continue to incorporate discussions of this topic during their regular meetings, but the Habitat & Ecosystem Subcommittee will serve as a synthesizer and host for advancing the broad themes of this work.

The webinar will cover topics including:

• Providing a regular forum for conversations and collaboration between physical and biological modelers
• System variability is not characterized sufficiently yet to determine whether perturbations from offshore development exceed natural variability
• Mismatches in the scale of data from long-term regional surveys and assessments of individual projects/activities
• Improving oceanography covariate design and selection in species distribution and habitat suitability modeling
• Predictive capability of correlative models
• Existing, unanalyzed data is an underused resource