Measuring our changing seas
Measuring our changing seas
Aotearoa Moana Observing System (AMOS)
AMOS is a registered charitable trust that has been established as the caretaker of the world-leading network of Moana temperature sensors that are operating and reporting data from the seas all around New Zealand.
Purpose
Every day the Moana sensor network generates huge amounts of critical data. AMOS’s role is to:
- ensure this work continues into the future,
- maintain the quality of the data,
- deliver the data into the public domain, making it easily available for scientists in New Zealand and around the world.
World leading
The Moana sensor network is the first nationwide program of its kind in the world, providing on-going, low-cost, subsurface temperature measurements from the ocean New Zealand-wide, creating a window into our changing world.
Our changing world
Sea temperatures around Aotearoa New Zealand are changing. This directly impacts our seafood, wildlife, weather and people.
What are these changes and where are they occurring fastest? We can only answer these questions with accurate measurements from all around New Zealand, spanning past, present, and future.
Monitoring
Sea surface temperatures can be remotely monitored by satellites. However, these measurements do not reflect the temperatures in the underlying water column. You don’t check the bathwater temperature by just touching the surface.
Measuring subsurface water temperature involves lowering a sensor down through the water column.
Making these subsurface measurements regularly all around New Zealand has previously not been economically feasible or practically possible. Until now!
The Moana project
Between 2018 and 2023, a nationwide scientific research program called The Moana Project was funded by New Zealand’s Ministry for Business, Innovation, and Employment (MBIE) and administrated by MetService. Part of the project was to gain a better insight into the sea temperatures and marine heatwaves around New Zealand, so we can improve our climate forecasting and knowledge of the changes affecting our nation.
Technology
To achieve this, a fully automatic, accurate and robust sensor system was developed by ZebraTech Ltd in Nelson, New Zealand.
The sensor (Moana TD) can be easily attached to a wide range of commercial fishing gear, including trawls, long lines, pots, dredges and nets.
A solar powered Deck Unit wirelessly receives the data from the sensor and uploads it to a Metservice operated cloud database, where it passes through a highly developed quality analysis process and then safely stored.
Commercial fishing boats operate year-round throughout New Zealand, lowering and raising their gear repeatedly through the water column. This creates an ideal platform for deploying a profiling ocean sensor.
We have established a nationwide, low-cost, data collection system by mounting the Moana TD on fishing gear.
The Moana sensor system is now also widely used around the world for similar projects.
Team New Zealand
Thanks to the Moana project, Moana sensor systems have been installed on hundreds of volunteer vessels around New Zealand.
These are mostly commercial fishing vessels, with recreational fishers, educational vessels, scientific research vessels, waka ama, divers and survey boats helping to fill in gaps in our coastal waters and beyond.
Collectively, these vessels are operating regularly year-round throughout New Zealand waters.
Data
The Moana sensor network has recorded millions of data points so far, from the Three Kings Islands in the north, to the Auckland Islands in the south, and from the Chatham’s in the East to the rugged West coast.
These measurements provide a comprehensive insight into how sea temperature is changing below the surface around New Zealand.
The data is mostly open access and made publicly available to scientists around the world so they can contribute to our global understanding of our changing seas.
Future
While the funding for the Moana sensor network ended in December 2024, the sensor network is still fully operational and functioning, generating never-before-seen amounts of valuable data every day.
AMOS, a registered charitable trust, has been established as an independent, neutral caretaker of the sensor system, ensuring it operates into the future and generating vital data that will help all of New Zealand in our changing world.
Supporting AMOS
AMOS is seeking funds to keep the network operational and continue this critical work.
Our basic ongoing costs include cellular data transmission, cloud server maintenance, sensor calibration and repair costs.
If you can help, we would love to hear from you.
In the media
The sensor network has been featured in local and international media publications as well as peer-reviewed scientific articles that highlight the incredible work being done here in Aoteaora New Zealand.
Scientific publications
Aotearoa New Zealand's Sensor Network
"Partnering with the commercial fishing sector and Aotearoa New Zealand’s ocean community to develop a nationwide subsurface temperature monitoring program" published in "Progress in Oceanography"
Looking Forward: a Global View
"Towards a global Fishing Vessel Ocean Observing Network (FVON): state of the art and future directions," featuring the sensor networking in Aotearoa New Zealand, in "Frontiers in Marine Science"
A vision for Ocean observing in Aotearoa New Zealand
Developing an Integrated Ocean Observing System for New Zealand
How impactful our observations can be
Assessing the impact of subsurface temperature observations from fishing vessels on temperature and heat content estimates in shelf seas: a New Zealand case study using Observing System Simulation Experiments
Testimonials
Deepwater Group
“We see immense value in the utility of the temperature data, both for the seafood sector and the New Zealand public as a whole.”
Tim Pankhurst, former Seafood New Zealand CEO
“The ocean sensor temperature programme is essential to understanding the changes the seas surrounding us are undergoing…it is vital that the Moana sensor programme, the most extensive of its kind in the world, be maintained.”
Shark Experience team
"This project has given Shark Experience the ability to contribute, be part of and respond to the changes in our workplace, our favorite place: the ocean.”
Dr. George Maynard of NOAA
“The 1000m sensors developed in the
Moana Project have allowed the eMOLT program to expand into deep water fisheries operating on the shelf slope of the Northeastern United States…the Moana Project has really pushed the envelope on what's possible with this approach.”
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