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Global multi-scale Ocean Carbon Observatory (GOCO)

Vision

Establish a collaborative strategy to enable international research institutions to advance the research necessary for co-designing the knowledge and governance frameworks required to deploy and maintain a Global multi-scale Ocean Carbon Observatory (GOCO). GOCO will build on the existing skeleton of sparse global carbon observing networks and will seek coordination through existing international organizations.

Summary

This working group brings together institutions united by a shared long-term vision to establish an operational, multi-scale Global Ocean Carbon Observatory (GOCO). This observatory aims to play a pivotal role in tracking carbon dynamics, supporting the monitoring, reporting, and verification of carbon across various scales, understanding the impacts of natural and human-induced changes on ocean ecosystems, and fostering new scientific discoveries.

GOCO is an ambitious vision that demands resources beyond what a working group alone can provide. Recognizing this, the working group is committed to taking the initial steps toward its realization.

Specifically, the group will:

  • Co-design and advance research and development to prototype building blocks addressing GOCO s infrastructure gaps, considering both technical and social dimensions.
  • Simultaneously engage global partners and organizations already working on observing marine carbon to collaboratively shape the design of GOCO, focusing on requirements for its operation, scalability, and long-term sustainability.

Duration

An initial term of three years (2024-2027) with renewal is contingent upon progress and securing additional resources.

Partnering Institutions

The list of institutions is updated as of October 5, 2024 and will be expanded as new members join the WG (see MEMBERSHIP CRITERIA).

News & Resources

Stanford Workshop

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Additional reading

Members

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Andrew Babbin

MIT

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William Barnett

Stanford

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Emanuele Di Lorenzo

Ocean Visions, WHOI,
co-convener

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Rob Dunbar

Stanford

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Noah Gluschankoff

Stanford, co-convener

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Tod Hynes

MIT

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David Koweek

Ocean Visions

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Radhika Malpani

Stanford

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David (Roo) Nicholson

WHOI

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Akash Rastogi

OFI

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Eric Siegel

OFI

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Anya Waite

OFI

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Susan E. Wijffels

WHOI

Andrew Babbin

Associate Professor of Chemical Oceanography and Marine Microbiology Mission Co-director, MIT Climate Project: Restoring the Atmosphere, Protecting the Land and Oceans.

Andrew Babbin joined the EAPS faculty in 2017. After earning a bachelor’s in Earth and environmental engineering, with a minor in applied mathematics, from Columbia University in 2008, Babbin went on to complete doctoral studies in geoscience at Princeton University in 2014. Prior to joining the EAPS faculty, Babbin came to MIT as an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering from 2014-2016. 

In 2024, Babbin was appointed as a mission co-director for the MIT Climate Project Mission: Restoring the Atmosphere, Protecting the Land and Oceans. The Climate Project is an Institute-wide effort to focus MIT’s strengths on six broad climate-related mission areas, with the goal to change the trajectory of global climate outcomes for the better over the next decade.

William Barnett

William P. Barnett is Chair of the Department of Environmental Behavioral Sciences at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability, and is the Thomas M. Siebel Professor of Business Leadership, Strategy, and Organizations at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Barnett is the Faculty Director of the Stanford Initiative on Business and Environmental Sustainability, and Faculty Director of the Stanford Executive Program. He is a Senior Fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute on the Environment. Barnett received his Ph.D. in Business Administration from the University of California, Berkeley. His research looks at the evolution of industries and organizations over time. Currently, Barnett is studying humanity’s response to the challenge of environmental sustainability, featuring organizational innovations and adaptations at research sites in various parts of the world. These findings are documented in his forthcoming book, Organizing Sustainability by Design.

Emanuele Di Lorenzo

Emaunele Di Lorenzo is Professor of Earth, Environmental, & Planetary Sciences at Brown University and Founding Chairman of Ocean Visions. He previously served as Professor and Founding Director of the Program in Ocean Science and Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He obtained his Ph.D. in 2003 from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and conducted postdoctoral work at UCLA from 2003-2004. Di Lorenzo is recognized as a world expert in large and regional-scale Pacific Ocean dynamics and climate. Throughout his career he has served in several leadership role for international organizations such as CLIVAR, US CLIVAR, PICES, and ICES, where he led transdisciplinary efforts to understand the impacts of climate on marine and social-ecological systems. More recently in 2019, through a multi-institutional agreement between Georgia Tech, Stanford, MIT, Scripps, WHOI, Smithsonian, MBARI, UGA, Monterey Bay Aquarium and Georgia Aquarium, Di Lorenzo established the Ocean Visions (www.oceanvisions.org) — an effort to transform and accelerate the transfer of science and engineering into solutions for the ocean grand challenges.

Rob Dunbar

My research and teaching interests include Climate Dynamics, Oceanography, Marine Ecology, and Biogeochemistry. I am interested in environmental policy directed towards problem-solving. My research group studies global environmental change with a focus on air-sea interactions, tropical marine ecosystems, polar climate, and biogeochemistry. In October, 2001, I became the founding director of the Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Environment and Resources (now E-IPER), a position I maintained until 2005. In January, 2003, I was appointed the Victoria P. and Roger W. Sant Director of the Earth Systems Program, the largest undergraduate and co-terminal masters program in the School of Earth Sciences, an appointment that ran through 2012. In January, 2004, I was named the J. Frederick and Elisabeth B. Weintz University Fellow in Undergraduate Education in recognition of teaching and mentoring of Stanford undergraduate students. I was awarded the William M. Keck Professorship in 2008, the same year that I moved from the Department of Geological and Environmental Sciences to the newly created Department of Environmental Earth System Science. In 2009, I was elected as a Trustee for the Consortium for Ocean Leadership in Washington D.C. where I am active in promoting the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program and the Ocean Observatories Initiative. I am currently serving as the Chairperson of OL’s Board of Trustees. In 2004 I helped start the Palmyra Atoll Research Consortium (PARC) to promote research and conservation of Pacific coral reefs

Noah Gluschankoff

Noah is wrapping up his PhD in Chemical Oceanography at Stanford University where he uses the isotopes of nitrogen and oxygen and tracers of water mass circulation in the Pacific Ocean to understand the cycling and transport of nitrous oxide, a powerful greenhouse gas. Prior to his PhD, Noah worked as a lab technician with the Marine Carbon group at NOAA PMEL. Noah is excited to advance global ocean observing efforts to advance our fundamental understanding of biogeochemical processes and potential outcomes of mCDR practices.

Tod Hynes

Thomas (Tod) Hynes is a Senior Lecturer in the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship. He teaches Energy Ventures, a graduate-level course that guides teams of business, engineering, science, and policy students through the process of creating new energy ventures.

Hynes is also the founder and president of XL Hybrids, a company which addresses one of the largest and most immediate challenges in energy – rapidly reducing dependence on petroleum for transportation.  XL Hybrids has developed a proprietary hybrid electric powertrain which is cost effective for commercial fleets and can be installed in both new and existing vehicles in four hours.  This hybrid powertrain is rapidly getting adopted by Fortune 500 companies and uses components from leading suppliers like Johnson Controls.  XL Hybrids has also developed an advanced telematics platform which wirelessly collects vehicle operational data to optimize the performance of hybrid technology in real world applications.  Hynes raised over $50 million to launch this venture, and assembled and manages a cross-disciplinary team.

Hynes is the cofounder of the MIT Clean Energy Prize and is on the Advisory Board.  He also works with and advises startups and established companies active in energy.  Hynes was the director of alternative energy for Citizens Energy for five years and launched the company’s wind development business.  He successfully developed and sold over 230 MW of wind projects, and expanded the company’s wind business to include a project pipeline of over 2,000 MW. In addition to directing project acquisition, development, management activities, and operations, he assessed and developed new alternative energy business opportunities in energy efficiency, waste to renewable fuel, GHG offset projects, low head hydro, energy storage, and other sectors of the energy space.

Prior to joining Citizens Energy, Hynes was the principal director and cofounder of Strategic Energy Systems, a consulting and engineering services firm focused on distributed power generation and wind power. He also was the cochair of the Energy Committee for CERC, the organization that “greened” the 2004 Democratic and Republican National Conventions,.  He has served on the steering committee of the Boston Climate Action Network since 2003.  Hynes holds a BS in management science from MIT.

David Koweek

David Koweek, PhD is Chief Scientist at Ocean Visions, where he is responsible for ensuring scientific accuracy and integrity around the research, policy, and climate solutions developing at the intersection of ocean conservation and climate change. He is a leading authority on the potential of ocean-climate solutions and serves on leadership boards and panels internationally. Trained as a marine and Earth system scientist, he has led and participated in field expeditions around the world. He holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University, a B.S. from Brown University, and conducted postdoctoral research at the Carnegie Institution for Science.

Radhika Malpani

Radhika is a senior executive with over 30 years experience in the technology sector, working at leading organizations like Google, Hewlett Packard and Siemens.

At Google, Radhika was a Senior Eng. Director and was responsible, over a period of ~20 years, for initiating and scaling up several critical products. Starting with leading Google Ads in 2000, Radhika built Google Images, growing it to over 1B queries/day. In addition to starting Google Local Search, she also led Google Travel Search to help users better plan their leisure trips.

With a deep seated interest in leveraging technology for social good, Radhika left Google in mid 2019 to focus full-time on helping mission-driven startups scale. She serves on multiple boards, invests in, as well as advises, startup founders. Her experience working in the social sector has propelled her towards a dedicated focus on climate change. She spent a year at Stanford as a Fellow in Stanford’s Distinguished Career Institute, deepening her focus. She co-teaches entrepreneurship focussed on climate change both at Stanford’s Doerr School of Sustainability, where she is a Lecturer, and at UC Santa Cruz, where she is  an Associate Adjunct Professor. In addition, Radhika strongly believes marine cdr is the way to remove the excess GT of CO2 the planet is going to need to remove, and is working with Stanford’s Oceans dept on MRV (Monitoring, Reporting and Verification) for m-cdr.

David (Roo) Nicholson

Dr. David (Roo) Nicholson is an Associate Scientist in the Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry Department at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. His research has the broad goal of understanding global biogeochemical cycles in the context of a changing climate. Towards this challenge, his research uses observations from autonomous platforms, such as underwater gliders, floats and surface vehicles and numerical models of varying complexity. In addition, a central focus in the Nicholson Lab is on marine cycles of dissolved gases, including oxygen, carbon dioxide, methane and the noble gases.

Akash Rastogi

Akash is a seasoned business strategist with extensive experience driving complex transformational initiatives – both at industry level and for leading North American financial institutions. Despite being raised in the land-locked city of New Delhi, India, Akash dreamt of the high seas since childhood. After spending the last 20 years in the Financial Services industry – in senior roles that included Partner & Canadian Head of Financial Services Advisory practice at a Fortune 200 consulting firm and institutional derivatives trading – Akash finally pivoted to the Ocean industry. He is currently a Lead Strategist at Canada’s Ocean Frontier Institute focused on advancing its Innovation and Commercialization mandate, is a co-founder of the Reykjavik Protocol, member of Canadian national carbon management coalition, a mentor to numerous ocean-based CDR startups and a Board member of Humber Bay Sailing Centre. Akash is passionate about ocean-based CDR and is leveraging his in-depth strategy consulting and capital markets experience to help propel it. Akash is a graduate of Indian Institute of Technology, Richard Ivey School of Business at University of Western Ontario and Stanford Graduate School of Business.  Akash is a drummer and an ardent sailor preparing for his maiden ocean passage. He lives with his family in Toronto, Canada.

Eric Siegel

Eric has worked at the intersection of ocean science, innovation, and international business for more than twenty years. He has held director and founder positions in global ocean technology companies leading teams in product development, business development, sales, marketing, and advanced manufacturing. He has extensive experience living and working in North America, Europe, the UK, and Asia.

Eric serves on the UN Ocean Decade Technology & Innovation Informal Working Group, sits on the Board of Directors at Sustainable Oceans Applied Research and Sail Nova Scotia, and supports the Creative Destruction Lab Oceans stream as the Executive in Residence. Eric is trained in physical oceanography, naval architecture, and marine engineering, and earned an MBA with a focus on leadership, innovation, and global business. When not helping ocean scientists and companies, Eric is an active sailor, having crossed both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans on his small boats, and is now racing Bluenose Class Sloops with his family in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Anya Waite

Dr. Anya Waite (BScHon Dalhousie; PhD University of British Colombia) is the chief executive officer and scientific director of the Ocean Frontier Institute led by Dalhousie University.She was a post-doctoral scholar at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and a Winthrop Professor in Australia before becoming Section Head of Biological Oceanography at the Alfred Wegener Institute.Dr. Waite has won numerous teaching excellence awards and was recently awarded Japan’s Yoshida Award for oceanographic upwelling research.Previously, Dr. Waite served as co-chair of the Global Ocean Observing System, Canada’s representative on the World Meteorological Organization’s Greenhouse Gas Study Group, and the associate vice-president research (ocean) at Dalhousie.

Susan E. Wijffels

Susan aims to quantify and understand the role of the ocean in climate, key aspects of the large-scale ocean circulation and global ocean change. She also is recognised for her contributions to the design, implementation and exploitation of the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS). Susan received a B.Sc. Hons (First Class) from the Flinders University of South Australia, in 1986, and a PhD in 1993 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology – Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s Joint Program in Oceanography and Oceanographic Engineering, USA. She was with the CSIRO’s Marine Laboratory from 1994, becoming a principle senior researcher, before joining WHOI’s Physical Oceanography Department in July 2017.

Susan’s work at WHOI focusses on her long term interests in the variability of the Indonesian Throughflow and its role in climate, the global Argo project and the evolution of its design (she is co-chair of the International Argo Steering Team), decadal ocean variability, quantifying global ocean change over the past 50 years, including the anatomy and drivers of ocean warming and change, how changes in the earth’s hydrological cycle are expressed in the ocean.