The Oracle Meets Nereus: Answering Policy Questions About the Future Ocean

The Oracle of Delphi lived on the slope of Mount Parnassus while Nereus roamed the seas – did they ever meet? Disciplines tend not to interact, in science as well as in real life. However, through the international Nereus Program we build on the strength of a suite of disciplines to address questions about the future state of life in the oceans. Given the wide potential range of topics, we focus on high-level policy questions, such as climate change scenarios, which affect future life in the oceans.  The overarching concern is whether there will continue to be a healthy ocean and seafood for our children and grandchildren to enjoy. To address this topic, we use coupled global ocean models, which use extensive global databases to quantify the effects of a wide range of impacts, from climate change on fisheries to human resilience to declining food supplies. A key goal of this work is to ensure that the individual models and datasets built for each discipline remain autonomous while also working cohesively to address the overall issue. The advantage of the coupled modeling approach is that both policy and science questions can be explored by building on the combined expertise of various partners. Recognizing that traditional scientific means of communication have limitations that make them best suited for communication between scientists, our system, which we call The Oracle, uses various ways to advance the scientific means of communication. The Oracle speaks in pictures to describe the future ocean, and is designed to 1) identify related questions that help address the overarching concern and 2) provide a visual approach to describe the future ocean through visualizations, which build on a 3D-gaming engine that is coupled to the scientific models. To this effect, we present a study of the global ocean where the consequences of alternative management scenarios can be communicated visually.