IQOE Sponsorship | International Quiet Ocean Experiment (IQOE)

IQOE Sponsorship

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation provided most of the seed funding for the development of IQOE. SCOR and POGO are contributing additional resources for implementation.

Targeted support from the Richard Lounsbery Foundation and the Monmouth University/Rockefeller University joint marine initiative for specific IQOE purposes, including (1) development of the MANTA software platform, (2) development of GLUBS, (3) data collation and analysis for the World Ocean Passive Acoustic Monitoring (WOPAM) Day, (4) implementation of an online library of ocean acoustics and bioacoustics papers, and (5) making the book Exploring Animal Behavior Through Sound: Volumes 1 and 2, open access in electronic form.

Sustained annual financial support was provided by SCOR and the Lounsbery Foundation to hold meetings of the IQOE Science Committee. SCOR also provided part-time staff support for IQOE, funded a working group for the Global Library on Underwater Biological Sounds (GLUBS) and contributed to the development of a low-cost ocean acoustic recording system.

Targeted support was provided by POGO for more observational aspects of IQOE, including development of specifications for an Ocean Sound Essential Ocean Variable (EOV), development of the Ocean Sound EOV Implementation Plan, and development of a low-cost ocean acoustic recording system.

Status

IQOE's term as a decadal project was completed on 31 December 2025. Since 2015, IQOE implemented its Science Plan (available here) developed from an open science meeting in 2012. IQOE successfully coordinated a variety of activities in ocean acoustics and bioacoustics through IQOE working groups on the use of acoustics to assess biodiversity, the importance of acoustic observations in the Arctic Ocean, standards for reporting ocean acoustic and bioacoustic data for IQOE, software for making acoustic observations comparable worldwide, and recommendations for implementation of an Ocean Sound Essential Ocean Variable for the Global Ocean Observing System. IQOE progress has been documented since June 2018 through IQOE Newsletters and since the beginning of the project through other products. IQOE identified 2020 as the Year of the Quiet Ocean because of evidence that ocean sound decreased because of decreases in human activities in the ocean due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Next Steps

Although IQOE has completed its term, several activities begun by IQOE will continue to work independently or under a new structure. The IQOE Science Committee set up a committee to convene an open workshop to plan the next steps for continuing IQOE activities and for implementation of the Ocean Sound Essential Ocean Variable (EOV). The workshop will be held on 22-24 September 2026 at the Flanders Marine Institute in Oostende, Belgium. More details about the workshop will be forthcoming in the near future.