iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Ken Johnson @montereyken.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

🌊 The GO-BGC @globaloceanbgc.bsky.social project nears its end on Oct. 31 when 500 @bgc-argo.bsky.social floats with chemical and biological sensors for ocean health will have been deployed. The array will then begin to decline as there is no future funding to replace floats as batteries are 1/2

The a time-series animation of the location and trajectories of BGC-Argo @bgc-argo.bsky.social floats from the SOCCOM project (@soccomproject.bsky.social), GO-BGC project (@globaloceanbgc.bsky.social), and some partner programs.

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Roberta Hotinski @hotinski.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

GO-BGC has nearly completed deploying our global biogeochemical float array, but our future is uncertain. Join us for an OCB-hosted webinar on GO-BGC's status and role in ocean observing on Wed.,Sept. 23 at 10 am PT / 1 pm ET. tinyurl.com/bdct692k @usocb.bsky.social @globaloceanbgc.bsky.social

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Leni Hauss @lenihauss.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Sad to learn from a round mail that UC Davis' stable isotope facility (SIF) is shutting down. This place and its excellent staff have been of incredible service to biogeoscience and ecology around the globe, making isotope analysis accessible and affordable. This is a bummer. 🌊🦑🧪

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Ken Johnson @montereyken.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

@soccomproject.bsky.social @bgc-argo.bsky.social @globaloceanbgc.bsky.social 🌊The commentary by Dove et al (bit.ly/4fd2whZ) on the future of Argo comes at a critical moment for US Argo. GO-BGC, the major US BGC-Argo project funded by NSF completes all float deployments in 3 months. 1/3

A map of latest location of all 580 BGC-Argo floats with 5 or 6 BGC sensors (O2, nitrate, pH, chlorophyll, backscatter, irradiance) that have reported in the last 30 days. 481 of these sensors were deployed by US programs.

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Lily Dove @solilyquy.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

I'm proud to announce a commentary from the Phenomena, Observations, and Synthesis panel of @usclivar.bsky.social about the necessity of the Argo program. 🌊 🧪 You can check it out here: doi.org/10.5670/ocea...

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Ken Johnson @montereyken.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

🌊 A BGC-Argo/El Niño update from @globaloceanbgc.bsky.social & @bgc-argo.bsky.social. El Niño is on. Temp. is over 30C along the equator between 180 and 150W. Ocean pCO2 has dropped below atmospheric. Nitrate is zero and plankton/chlorophyll are crashing as they run out of fertilizer when.... 1/2

Time series (2020 to July 9, 2026) of the ENSO Index (positive = El Nino) at top. Next are temperature in the upper 200 m, partial pressure of carbon dioxide (computed from float pH), nitrate (an essential plankton nutrient), chorophyll, and Particulate Organic Carbon (plankton living and dead) measured by BGC-Argo floats deployed by the GO-BGC project. The white contour on all plots is the 29C isotherm. pCO2 and nitrate drop because reversing El Nino winds stop upwelling at the equator.

All data freely available at go-bgc.org in real-time.

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Ken Johnson @montereyken.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

🌊 @globaloceanbgc.bsky.social GO-BGC float of the month. El Niño is coming. The 2023/24 event is clear in the @bgc-argo.bsky.social record. The white, 29C contour outlines anomalies in pCO2, NO3, chlorophyll and particulate organic carbon. Those white contours are emerging again. Stay tuned.

The graphic BGC-Argo float data in the equatorial Pacific from 3N to 3S and 180E to 150W (210E) in the upper 200 m from 2020 to the present. Top panel shows temperature with the 29C contour in white. Next is pCO2 derived from float pH and an estimate of alkalinity computed from the LIAR algorithm. Third panel shows nitrate. Fourth is chlorophyll and fifth panel is particulate organic carbon (POC). The black rectangle outlines the time period of the 2023 to 2024 El Nino. The white contour on each panel is 29C. This white contour is just emerging again.

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Ken Johnson @montereyken.bsky.social · 06/05/2026

A sad day. Jorge Sarmiento, one of the greats in ocean science, passed away today. Jorge was a model leader; thoughtful, compassionate, and an excellent scientist. His leadership of @soccomproject.bsky.social transformed @bgc-argo.bsky.social into a global system.

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Ken Johnson @montereyken.bsky.social · 05/05/2026

Best job in ocean science and engineering, and I have one!

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MBARI @mbarinews.bsky.social · 04/05/2026

We're celebrating our inner space and MBARI's birthday today! 🎂🎉⁠ ⁠ For 39 years, MBARI has been exploring the stunning community of life that thrives deep beneath the ocean’s surface. Thanks for following along on this incredible journey here on social and beyond!

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Ken Johnson @montereyken.bsky.social · 19/03/2026

🌊cool article by Mari Bif on how science comes to fruition. And I'm in with my brother!

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Ocean Carbon & Biogeochemistry (OCB) @usocb.bsky.social · 19/02/2026

April 2026 National Academies hybrid workshop on exploring the future of @bgc-argo.bsky.social @globaloceanbgc.bsky.social - learn more here: tinyurl.com/4985e7zx 🌊

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Lily Dove @solilyquy.bsky.social · 07/02/2026

Surface ocean processes impact structure deep into the ocean interior. In our perspective paper, @maratimes.bsky.social, grad student Katarina Merk, and I discuss using physical perspectives to interpret subsurface biogeochemical distributions and why we as a community should care! 🌊

rdcu.be

Physical controls on heterogeneous mesopelagic biogeochemistry

Communications Earth & Environment - A patchy distribution of biogeochemical properties in the ocean interior arises from the combined influence of biological and physical processes.

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Ken Johnson @montereyken.bsky.social · 03/01/2026

🌊BGC-Argo float of the month is 5906497 with 4 years under Antarctic sea ice, just popped out. It was adopted by the American School in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and named “Hedy Lamarr” – the actress who co-invented and patented frequency hopping communications. Named for her science contribution. 1/2

Depth (0 to 300 m) by time (2022 to 2026) plots of temperature, salinity, particulate organic carbon (POC), chlorophyll (CHL_A), oxygen, nitrate, pH at in situ temp/pressure, and computed dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) for float 5906497 (adopted name Hedy Lamarr).

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Lily Dove @solilyquy.bsky.social · 21/12/2025

Home for the next few weeks. Gotta say, Tahiti is a funny place to board an icebreaker! 🌊⛴️

The RV Sikuliaq in port in Pape’etē, Tahiti

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Ken Johnson @montereyken.bsky.social · 25/11/2025

What's interesting as the Thanksgiving Holiday arrives? The first @bgc-argo.bsky.social profiling floats begin to emerge from under Antarctic sea ice each year. Float 5905383 is the first @soccomproject.bsky.social float for 2025/26. It has spent 7.9 years operating under ice. #argofloats #oneargo

The 3 graphs show temperature, salinity, and oxygen from the surface to 300 m versus year from 2018 through 2025 for profiling float 5905383. The map shows the trajectory of the float from deployment in the Weddell Gyre (green square) and a loop around the Weddell sea to the present position at the red square.

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Ken Johnson @montereyken.bsky.social · 19/11/2025

And I thought we made a lot of @bgc-argo.bsky.social profiling floats!!!! We're going to have to work harder. @globaloceanbgc.bsky.social @soccomproject.bsky.social

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Ken Johnson @montereyken.bsky.social · 04/10/2025

🌊BGC-Argo float of the month is a sensor, not a float. Bif and Johnson (GBC; doi/10.1029/2024GB008473) show that the concentration of nitrite can be extracted from the UV spectra of ISUS or SUNA nitrate sensors. But more.. @globaloceanbgc.bsky.social floats. @mbarinews.bsky.social

Time series of a BGC‐Argo float WMO#5906483 deployed in the ETNP in January 2022 (see inset map reference). (a) Mean monthly POC stocks at the upper 100 m depth. (b) Chlorophyll fluorescence concentrations at the upper 200 m depth. Dashed black lines denote the ML. (c) POC concentrations overlain by the ML. (d) Nitrate concentrations. (e) Nitrite concentrations. (f) Thiosulfate concentrations. (g) Oxygen concentrations minus a background correction from the sensor
calibration offset. Continuous black lines denote the isolines where corrected O2 = 1 μmol kg^-1

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MBARI @mbarinews.bsky.social · 26/08/2025

Using robots and AI to unlock the secrets of a remote ocean with @soccomproject.bsky.social 🌊🤖🌊 Applying machine learning algorithms to a trove of data collected by robotic floats has improved estimates of ocean productivity and carbon export in the Southern Ocean: www.mbari.org/news/new-ai-...

mbari.org

New AI approach sharpens picture of carbon export in the Southern Ocean • MBARI

Applying machine learning algorithms to a trove of data collected by robotic floats has improved estimates of ocean productivity and carbon export in the Southern Ocean.

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Ken Johnson @montereyken.bsky.social · 13/08/2025

🌊The Southern Ocean is warming, is productivity changing? New paper by Liniger et al. uses the nitrate sensors on 274 SOCCOM/BGC-Argo floats to compute annual NCP. It has increased significantly over the past two decades. @mbarinews.bsky.social @soccomproject.bsky.social @bgc-argo.bsky.social‬

Screen shot of the article by Liniger et al. "Two decades of increase in Southern Ocean net community production revealed by BGC-Argo floats.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2024GB008371

Graphs shown the increase in mean (a) and total (b) Annual Net Community Production over the Southern Ocean from 2004 to 2022. The spatial distribution of the ANCP increase in shown in panel (c).

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Ken Johnson @montereyken.bsky.social · 02/08/2025

🌊 BGC-Argo float of the month. The 300th float of the GO-BGC project was launched in the S Atlantic. Funded by the US NSF, these floats provide essential observations of ocean metabolism - productivity, oxygen, pH... @bgc-argo.bsky.social‬ @globaloceanbgc.bsky.social #OneArgo #Argo

BGC-Argo profiling float WMO 7902313 is carried down the deck of the R/V OceanXplorer before launch. This float carries oxygen, pH, nitrate, chlorophyll and particle sensors. It will operate for 5 to 6 years, sampling from 2000 m to surface every 10 days.

A map of the 300 GO-BGC profiling float locations. All floats are part of the BGC-Argo array and were funded by the US National Science Foundation.

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Ken Johnson @montereyken.bsky.social · 05/06/2025

🌊Float of the Month. The BGC-Argo array in May 2025! With ships, it took decades to collect the data to visualize the chemistry and biology of the ocean interior. Now we can do it monthly, realtime, quality controlled. Access is easy with webODV. This is going to change things! #UNOC3 #OneArgo

Global maps of dissolved oxygen and nitrate concentration, pH, and optical backscatter by particles at 300 m depth in the ocean during May, 2025. Maps created with webODV, odv.awi.de.

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Ifremer 🌊 @ifremer.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

🌊 As the #UNOC3 gets underway, the international community is calling for increased support for #OneArgo, a key phase of the #Argo program, which is essential for monitoring the ocean and addressing climate challenges. @cnrs.fr @euro-argo.eu www.ifremer.fr/en/espace-pr...

ifremer.fr

Ocean monitoring: an international call to urgently strengthen the Argo program

As the 3rd United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC3) gets underway, the international community is drawing attention to the pivotal role of the Argo ocean observing program, as featured in a recent arti...

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kinesinmotors.bsky.social @kinesinmotors.bsky.social · 09/05/2025

👿 NSF in Turmoil: Radical Reorganization, Removal of Directors, Forced Layoffs 🧪 Follows take over by DOGE #SaveNSF science.org

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MBARI @mbarinews.bsky.social · 03/04/2025

Welcome our newest addition to the fleet! ⛴️ We're excited to announce the arrival of our new flagship vessel, R/V David Packard, at our headquarters in Moss Landing, California. This state-of-the-art ship will expand our capacity for ocean exploration. Learn more: www.mbari.org/news/mbari-e...

mbari.org

MBARI expands capacity for ocean research with new state-of-the-art ship • MBARI

MBARI’s marine operations team begins preparations for science missions aboard our new flagship research vessel David Packard later this year.

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Carlos Moffat @carlosmoffat.com · 22/03/2025

So, speaking of Universities caving to government demands and people bringing up loyalty oaths, here's a story that involves a well known oceanographer. In 1935 Massachusetts enacted a law that required teachers in public and private schools to take a loyalty oath to teach in the state 1/n 🌊

en.wikipedia.org

Massachusetts Teachers' Oath - Wikipedia

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Ken Johnson @montereyken.bsky.social · 10/03/2025

🌊Float of the Month, 5906440 (@globaloceanbgc.bsky.social @bgc-argo.bsky.social). Drifting north for 4 years, it shows the evolution of the bio. response to ocean phys. At low latitudes, warm water does not mix deep enough (Mixed Layer Depth, black line on NO3 plot) to bring NO3 to the surface. 1/2

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Julie Packard @juliepackard.montereybayaquarium.org · 25/02/2025

Protecting the ocean has always been a bipartisan effort, in Congress and across multiple White House administrations. In the face of ill-conceived attacks on @noaa.gov, it's time to raise our voices. My thoughts in defense of NOAA and #OceanScience: mbayaq.co/4k8vEsx

A wave curls and crashes from left to right as it swells toward the shoreline in Monterey Bay. the water is blue and the foaming wave front is white.

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Ken Johnson @montereyken.bsky.social · 03/02/2025

🌊MBARIs @mbarinews.bsky.social new research vessel, R/V David Packard, has left Vigo Spain to come home. Its first science mission, deploy @bgc-argo.bsky.social floats across the Atlantic and up the Pacific. First O2 float in for @argogermany.bsky.social. More for @globaloceanbgc.bsky.social

The R/V David Packard leaving the Freire Shipyard in Vigo, Spain where she was built. The Packard is 50 m and can carry a science party of 18 and a crew of 12.

Launching an Argo float with oxygen sensor for Argo-Germany off the Straits of Gibralter.

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Cara Manning @carabonate.bsky.social · 12/01/2025

The demo is based on this video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZzp...

youtube.com

The Atlantic Meridional Overturning

YouTube video by OceanClimateAtUoL

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Ken Johnson @montereyken.bsky.social · 11/01/2025

🌊🧪@bgc-argo.bsky.social Float of the Month. WMO 7900823 deployed nearly 80 south in the Ross Sea has done 2 years under ice. Here's the data plot (all data freely available @soccomproject.bsky.social). No bloom this year! Too much ice melt, no deep mixing, and no iron to feed plankton - IMO.

8 panels of data showing temperature, salinity (with mixed layer depth overlaid), chlorophyll, optical backscatter (bbp), oxygen, nitrate, pH and computed dissolved inorganic carbon over 2 years and down to 400 m.

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Ken Johnson @montereyken.bsky.social · 10/01/2025

It’s 10 days into the new year & @globaloceanbgc.bsky.social & @soccomproject.bsky.social have already deployed 10 new @bgc-argo.bsky.social profiling floats. 410 in the water, 70 with chem & 332 have chem/bio sensors - O2, pH, NO3, & bio-optics. They sample the upper 2 km every 10 days. 🌊⛴️🌡🧪

The global map of BGC-Argo profiling floats with multiple chemical and biological sensors. The floats sample the upper 2000 m of the water column every 10 days. Data is freely available.

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Ken Johnson @montereyken.bsky.social · 09/01/2025

Almost historical. I created the Periodic Table of Elements in the Ocean back in 1998 with my son, then age 14 who wrote the JavaScript, and daughter age 12 who chased down all references in the MLML library, to figure out how we could use the internet. Nice to see it in use. #mbari #globaloceanbgc

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Ken Johnson @montereyken.bsky.social · 21/12/2024

Happy Holidays from the SOCCOM (soccom.princeton.edu) and GO-BGC (go-bgc.org) projects. The present under the tree? 115 BGC-Argo profiling floats deployed this year and more at sea. All data freely available. Thanks to all the folks who made this happen and the US NSF for their support.

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Ken Johnson @montereyken.bsky.social · 21/12/2024

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Ken Johnson @montereyken.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

This is the first in an occasional series on ‘older ocean science papers you should read’. Ever wonder why cans no longer have Pb soldered seams? In 1980, Settle and Patterson used methods developed to measure Pb in seawater and measured lead in canned tuna. In Science (tinyurl.com/y4z83z8j), 1/4

Reference to Lead in Albacore: Guide to Lead Pollution in Americans by Dorothy Settle and Clair Patterson. Science, volume 207, 14 March 1980.

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Ken Johnson @montereyken.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

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Ken Johnson @montereyken.bsky.social · 18/11/2024

Thank you Sonne. They are currently at sea on a Geotraces cruise in the Indian Ocean, Eric Achterberg Chief Sci. There are 7 GO-BGC (go-bgc.org) profiling floats on board and 3 already launched (7902123, -24, -25). We very much appreciate their help deploying floats.

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Ken Johnson @montereyken.bsky.social · 12/11/2024

🌊@BGC-Argo, @GO_BGC float of the month 4903026. This is the first BGC-Solo II float, developed @scrippsocean.bsky.social. Deployed off Monterey Bay, it has made 375 vertical profiles, most to 2000 m at 1 to 3 day intervals (>10 years at 10 d cycles). The upper 300 m of the record is shown.

A BGC-Argo Solo float before deployment off Monterey Bay

The 2.5 year long record of temperature, oxygen, nitrate, and chlorophyll measured in the upper 300 m.

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Ken Johnson @montereyken.bsky.social · 31/10/2024

🌊An awesome BGC-Argo paper in PNAS (doi.org/10.1073/pnas...) that does a global census of phytoplankton carbon. They conclude "Our study demonstrates that profiling robots enable more reliable monitoring of Earth’s phytoplankton, which is urgently needed to understand the impact of climate change."

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Ken Johnson @montereyken.bsky.social · 16/10/2024

🌊 Interested in ocean chlorophyll? A new paper by Long et al. rdcu.be/dXcjY explores the relationship between chloro, measured by BGC-Argo floats and by ocean color satellites. The figure shows seasonal maps of Chl_flt/Chl_sat. Systematic variations in the ratio are likely due to effects of Fe.

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Ken Johnson @montereyken.bsky.social · 11/10/2024

@davidho.bsky.social @GO_BGC Glad to contribute. I used to do a "profiling float of the month" on that other app. Here's my first for Bluesky. Float WMO_5905380 is nearing its 8th year operating under seasonal ice in the Weddell Sea and just popped up, transmitting data from last winter.

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Ken Johnson @montereyken.bsky.social · 11/10/2024

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MBARI @mbarinews.bsky.social · 14/08/2024

A new study from MBARI researchers and their collaborators using SOCCOM float data has revealed that storms trigger the release of carbon dioxide from the ocean. This work will help improve models used for forecasting our changing climate. Dive in: www.mbari.org/news/new-res...

mbari.org

New research reveals the importance of storms in air-sea carbon exchange in the Southern Ocean • MBARI

Observations collected by SOCCOM’s network of robotic floats provide new information about how frequent storms in this remote region can affect the ocean’s ability to absorb carbon dioxide.

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