Description: In recognition of the Ocean’s importance “to an equitable and sustainable planet”, the United Nations have pronounced 2021-2030 as the Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development. What will “the Ocean we need for the future we want” look like? And how can we transform human behavior to become more sustainable? And what are the expected impacts on the ocean. Realizing that the ocean dimension of sustainable development should be underpinned by inclusive knowledge, the Ocean Decade identifies ten challenges to deliver “the science we need for the Ocean we want”.The UN Ocean Decade recognises seven societal outcomes and ten challenges. In order to facilitate progress the community is asked to proposed global decade programmes which themselves are supported by several more regional or topical projects. Ideally these actions involve the global science community in a interdisciplinary manner and engage in co-design and co-production of knowledge generation that enables science based actions.A key aspect of the UN Ocean Decade is to deliver against the UN's stated ambition 'to leave no one behind'. This is a call to action for training, capacity exchange and ocean education and literacy.

Description: Digital twins are fine-grained digital replicas of physical objects and systems which have been widely applied in the engineering realm for tasks such as engine optimization and port management. Recently, digital twins have also caught the attention of marine scientists as a solution to socio-environmental problems. By bundling and providing access to observational data, models, and simulations, digital twins allow users to explore current and future ‘what-if’ scenarios, especially related to human interactions with the ocean. High-value application areas include fisheries and mariculture, marine protected areas, ocean-based tourism, ecological forecasting, nature-based solutions, marine infrastructure development, and the interactions between all of these with an ever-growing collection of data streams.In the context of the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development, we launched the international programme “DITTO - The Digital Twins of the Ocean“ (ditto-oceandecade.org) in May 2022. DITTO’s mission is to develop and share a common understanding of Digital Twins of the Ocean, to establish best practice examples and to advance a digital framework to empower ocean professionals to effectively create their own application-focused digital twin. This powerful framework will enable users to visualize and explore ocean knowledge and empower ocean professionals and models, forecasts, citizen scientists, policymakers, and the general public alike.A successful regional implementation of a Digital Twin depends on four aspects: A) a capable ocean observing system B) An innovative ocean modeling and prediction capability C) An interoperable, shared and easily accessible data environment. D) An interactive user interface. International cooperation will be key for success.

Description: Seismic oceanography comprises a new field within Geophysics where reflections within the water column are investigated. It was shown that those reflections correspond to thin layers with strong vertical temperature gradients. Those reflections hence represent a chance to trace those temperature gradients over large distances.Weak seismic reflections within the water column south of South Africa gave rise to the question whether here traces of the Agulhas Current or Agulhas Retroflection can be observed. A careful reprocessing of the data led to the imaging of fields of reflections pointing towards a 135 km broad and about 1000 m deep reaching well stratified area with strong reflection amplitudes and several weaker reflections extending down to at least 1500 m water depth over the whole area of investigation.To image both the boundaries between the water masses as reflections and the different properties of the long wavelength velocity variations in depth special imaging technigues like prestack depth migration analysis were performed. Further, the temperature gradients from the short wavelength properties as velocity and density contrasts were determind by a two step inversion of acoustic amplitude versus angle analysis to better quantify the variations of the water masses of the Agulhas Current.

Description: The gateway south of South Africa allows the exchange of water masses between the Indian/Pacific Oceans (warm surface water masses) and the Atlantic (cold deep and bottom water masses). This heat transfers maintains the global conveyor belt. Hence the South African continental margin represents an important gateway, whose detailed evolution is not yet fully understood. A compilation of the evolution of the oceanic circulation within the South African gateway since the Early Eocene on the basis of seismic reflection data is put forward and discussed. The effect of a proto-AABW can be found in the southern Cape Basin and south of South Africa as early as Early Eocene-Early Oligocene. In the period Early Oligocene-Middle Miocene a current equivalent to AAIW/Agulhas Retroflection leaves its oldest traces identifiable on the eastern Agulhas Plateau. Indications for the Benguela Current can be found in the Cape Basin in Middle Miocene times. With the onset of NADW in the period Middle Miocene-Early Pliocene the branch of AABW flowing through the Agulhas Passage is weakened and finally deflected to the south in Early Pliocene-Holocene times.

Description: With the publication of Holbrook et al. (2003) the field of seismic oceanography experienced a major momentum. Several authors since then (Nandi et al., 2004; Holbrook and Fer, 2005; Paramo and Holbrook, 2005) could show that those reflections within the water column correspond to thin layers with strong vertical temperature gradients. Those reflections hence represent a chance to trace those temperature gradients over large distances.Weak seismic reflections within the water column south of South Africa gave rise to the question whether here traces of the Agulhas Current or Agulhas Retroflection can be observed. A careful reprocessing of the data led to the imaging of fields of reflections pointing towards a 135 km broad and about 1000 m deep reaching well stratified area with strong reflection amplitudes and several weaker reflections extending down to at least 1500 m water depth over the whole area of investigation.To image both the boundaries between the water masses as reflections and the different properties of the long wavelength velocity variations in depth special imaging technigues like prestack depth migration analysis were performed. Further, the temperature gradients from the short wavelength properties as velocity and density contrasts were determind by a two step inversion of acoustic amplitude versus angle analysis to better quantify the variations of the water masses of the Agulhas Current. References:Holbrook, W.S., and I. Fer, Ocean internal wave spectra inferred from seismic reflection transects, 2005, Geophys. Res. Lett., 32, L15604, doi:10.1029/2005GL023733.Nandi, P., W.S. Holbrook, S. Pearse, P. Paramo, and R.W. Schmitt, 2004, Seismic reflection imaging of Norwegian Sea water mass boundaries, Geophys. Res. Lett., 31, L23311, doi:10.1029/2004GL021325.Páramo, P., and W. S. Holbrook, 2005, Temperature contrasts in the water column inferred from amplitude-versus-offset analysis of acoustic reflections, Geophys. Res. Lett., v. 32, L24611, doi:10.1029/2005GL024533.

Description: With the publication of Holbrook et al. (2003) the field of seismic oceanography experienced a major momentum. Several authors since then (Nandi et al., 2004; Holbrook and Fer, 2005; Paramo and Holbrook, 2005) could show that those reflections within the water column correspond to thin layers with strong vertical temperature gradients. Those reflections hence represent a chance to trace those temperature gradients over large distances.Weak seismic reflections within the water column south of South Africa gave rise to the question whether here traces of the Agulhas Current or Agulhas Retroflection can be observed. A careful reprocessing of the data led to the imaging of fields of reflections pointing towards a 135 km broad and about 1000 m deep reaching well stratified area with strong reflection amplitudes and several weaker reflections extending down to at least 1500 m water depth over the whole area of investigation.To image both the boundaries between the water masses as reflections and the different properties of the long wavelength velocity variations in depth special imaging technigues like prestack depth migration analysis were performed. Further, the temperature gradients from the short wavelength properties as velocity and density contrasts were determind by a two step inversion of acoustic amplitude versus angle analysis to better quantify the variations of the water masses of the Agulhas Current. References:Holbrook, W.S., and I. Fer, Ocean internal wave spectra inferred from seismic reflection transects, 2005, Geophys. Res. Lett., 32, L15604, doi:10.1029/2005GL023733.Nandi, P., W.S. Holbrook, S. Pearse, P. Paramo, and R.W. Schmitt, 2004, Seismic reflection imaging of Norwegian Sea water mass boundaries, Geophys. Res. Lett., 31, L23311, doi:10.1029/2004GL021325.Páramo, P., and W. S. Holbrook, 2005, Temperature contrasts in the water column inferred from amplitude-versus-offset analysis of acoustic reflections, Geophys. Res. Lett., v. 32, L24611, doi:10.1029/2005GL024533.

Description: With the publication of Holbrook et al. (2003) the field of seismic oceanography experienced a major momentum. Several authors since then (Nandi et al., 2004; Holbrook and Fer, 2005; Paramo and Holbrook, 2005) could show that those reflections within the water column correspond to thin layers with strong vertical temperature gradients. Those reflections hence represent a chance to trace those temperature gradients over large distances.Weak seismic reflections within the water column south of South Africa gave rise to the question whether here traces of the Agulhas Current or Agulhas Retroflection can be observed. A careful reprocessing of the data led to the imaging of fields of reflections pointing towards a 135 km broad and about 1000 m deep reaching well stratified area with strong reflection amplitudes and several weaker reflections extending down to at least 1500 m water depth over the whole area of investigation.To image both the boundaries between the water masses as reflections and the different properties of the long wavelength velocity variations in depth special imaging technigues like prestack depth migration analysis were performed. Further, the temperature gradients from the short wavelength properties as velocity and density contrasts were determind by a two step inversion of acoustic amplitude versus angle analysis to better quantify the variations of the water masses of the Agulhas Current.References:Holbrook, W.S., and I. Fer, Ocean internal wave spectra inferred from seismic reflection transects, 2005, Geophys. Res. Lett., 32, L15604, doi:10.1029/2005GL023733.Nandi, P., W.S. Holbrook, S. Pearse, P. Paramo, and R.W. Schmitt, 2004, Seismic reflection imaging of Norwegian Sea water mass boundaries, Geophys. Res. Lett., 31, L23311, doi:10.1029/2004GL021325.Páramo, P., and W. S. Holbrook, 2005, Temperature contrasts in the water column inferred from amplitude-versus-offset analysis of acoustic reflections, Geophys. Res. Lett., v. 32, L24611, doi:10.1029/2005GL024533.