SIC Sub-group 1: Surface Ocean Systems
Chair: Andrew Lenton (Tasmania)
The members of SIC Sub Group 1 are:
| Member | Expertise | |
| Andrew Lenton (Tasmania), Chair | modelling (surface) ocean CO2, Southern Ocean systems | Andrew.Lenton{@}csiro.au |
| Dorothy Bakker (UK) | Ocean CO2 observations & synthesis | d.bakker{@}uea.ac.uk |
| Nick Bates (USA) | Time-Series | nick.bates{@}bios.edu |
| Gregory Beaugrand (UK) | Variability of Ecosystems | Gregory.Beaugrand{@}univ-lille1.fr |
| Alberto Borges (Belgium) | CO2 Coastal Issues | Alberto.Borges{@}ulg.ac.be |
| Toshiro Saino (Japan) | Remote sensing and ocean CO2 | ttanhua{@}ifm-geomar.de |
| Britt Stephens (USA) | Atmospheric chemistry (CO2, O2…) | stephens{@}ucar.edu |
NEWS UPDATES
September 2011
New chair for Surface Ocean Systems group
Welcome to Dr Andrew Lenton from the The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in his new role as chair of the SOLAS/IMBER Carbon Group Sub WG1.
Andrew is a research scientist at CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research in Hobart. He is a biogeochemical modeller with a lot of experience in the collection and analysis of the carbonate system. His research has focused primarily on the historical and future evolution of the Southern Ocean carbon sink at different scales of variability. His interests also include ocean acidification, the interaction of the carbon cycle with climate variability and change, and development of sampling strategies.
One of Andrew’s first actions will be to contact working group members to discuss activities they would like SIC WG1 to undertake and plans for the future.
Sincere thanks are extended to Dorothee Bakker who remains active in this group but steps down as chair to focus on her role as chair of the closely related SOCAT project
June 2011
Joint SOLAS/IMBER/IOCCP Carbon (SIC) Synthesis meeting - register nowThe Ocean Carbon Cycle at a time of change: Synthesis and Vulnerabilities will be held 14-16 September 2011 at UNESCO in Paris, France. Registration deadline 1 August 2011.
Visit http://registrationsurfaceinterior.eventzilla.net/ to register or click here to download the flyer.
This meeting aims to bring together scientists working on global ocean carbon synthesis projects, such as CARINA, PACIFICA, GLODAP2, SOCAT, etc, but is open to all other scientists who are interested in developing an integrated view of how the ocean carbon cycle has changed in recent decades.
First public release of the Surface Ocean CO2 Atlas planned for September 2011
The Surface Ocean CO2 Atlas (SOCAT) has been created to improve access to global surface water CO2 data. SOCAT brings together, in a common format, all publicly available, surface water fCO2 (fugacity of CO2) data from the coastal seas and global oceans. The methods in SOCAT are transparent and fully documented (http://www.socat.info/) and will be described in technical articles (Pfeil et al., in preparation; Sabine et al., in preparation).
Two SOCAT products will be made publicly available: 1) A global surface ocean fCO2 data set with second level quality control; 2) A global gridded product of monthly surface water fCO2 means, with no temporal or spatial interpolation (i.e. bin averages). The Live Access Server will allow to explore and to download the data and gridded products once released. The first public release of SOCAT (version 1.4) contains 8.8 million fCO2 values between 1968 and 2008 from the global oceans, including the Arctic Ocean, and the coastal seas. An internal release of SOCAT version 1.4 is planned for May/June 2011 and a public release on 14 September 2011.
SOCAT science will be discussed at these meetings: 1) ‘The Ocean Carbon Cycle at a Time of Change: Synthesis and Vulnerabilities’ (14-16 September 2011, Unesco, Paris); 2) A session on ‘The Changing Ocean Carbon Cycle: Data Synthesis, Analyses and modeling’, Ocean Sciences meeting on 20-24 February 2012. A Special Issue will be published on the science presented at the September meeting.
Future updates to SOCAT are envisaged, but sustained funding is required with some initial funding now available. Colleagues are strongly encouraged to submit their quality controlled surface water fCO2 data for inclusion in future SOCAT releases, as these data become available. We much welcome your ideas on future SOCAT.
Research using SOCAT will highlight the response of surface water fCO2 and the oceanic CO2 sink to increasing levels of atmospheric CO2 in a changing climate. The SOCAT data set will be an important building block for future global carbon research.
March 2011
New chair for Surface Ocean Systems group
Welcome to Dorothee Bakker from the University of East Anglia in her new role as chair of the SOLAS/IMBER Carbon Group Sub WG1. Click here to read Dorothees biography.
Sincere thanks are extended to Nicolas Metzl who has been chair since 2005 for the invaluable, active lead he has taken in Surface Ocean Systems activities over the years.
January 2011
SOLAS newsletter on joint SOLAS-IMBER Ocean Carbon Research
Issue 12 of the SOLAS newsletter focuses on research associated with SOLAS Focus 3 - Air-Sea
Flux of CO2 and Other Long-Lived Radiatively Active Gases. It contains scientific articles including some of the lastest research related to Surface ocean Systems as well as an overview of the joint SOLAS/IMBER Carbon Group (SIC)
Click here for the Overview Article
Other articles of interest may include...
October 2010
Surface Ocean CO2 Atlas (SOCAT) meeting report now available
The Southern and Indian Ocean Surface Ocean CO2 Atlas (SOCAT) Workshop took place at CSIRO Marine Laboratories, Hobart, Tasmania, 16-18 June 2010. The final report of the meeting can ba accessed at http://www.ioccp.org/Workshops.html
Click Here to read a short report on the meeting from SOLAS newsletter issue 11.
January 2010
Surface Ocean CO2 Atlas (SOCAT) -Atlantic and Southern Oceans regional meeting planned for May/June 2010
During the SOCAT meeting in June 2009 in Norwich, UK (sponsored by IOCCP, SOLAS/COST and IMBER) and the SSG IOCCP last September 2009 in Jena, Germany (ICDC8), the SOCAT-Atlantic and Southern Oceans group decided to organise a meeting in May/June 2010 in order to progress on QC2-SOCAT, SOCAT science, as well as RECAPP project.
Concerning the Southern Ocean, recent studies have suggested the CO2 sink has stabilized or possibly decreased in recent years. This has to be examined in more detail for at least the last 20 years as it could explain current trends in the global carbon budget (e.g. Nature G. paper published in Nov 2009, Le Quere et al) and in the future (e.g. Lenton et al, GRL, 2009).
June 2009
Surface Ocean CO2 Atlas (SOCAT) Regional Workshop
A SOCAT Atlantic and Southern Oceans Regional Workshop was held in Norwich, UK, 25th-26th June 2009. The meeting was organised by Ute schuster and Dorothee Bakker. Report available here.
May 2009
Sub-group 1 Annual Report now available
The Annual Report by Nicolas Metzl can be downloaded here.
April 2009
Special issue of Deep-Sea Research II: Surface Ocean CO2 Variability and Vulnerabilities
Volume 56, Numbers 8–10, April 2009.
Guest Editors: Sylvie Roy, Nicolas Metzl, BronteTilbrook, Scott Doney, Richard Feely, Dorothee Bakker, and Corinne Le Quere.
June 2008
Surface Ocean CO2 Atlas (SOCAT) Project
http://www.socat.info
At the “Surface Ocean CO2 Variability and Vulnerability” workshop in April 2007, co-sponsored by IOCCP, SOLAS, IMBER, and the Global Carbon Project, participants agreed to establish a standard global surface CO2 data set that would bring together, in a common format, all publicly available surface CO2 data.
The IOCCP and the SOLAS-IMBER Carbon Coordination Group established 5 regional working groups to identify data not yet included in the global standard data set by December 2007. The groups are: North Atlantic (including Arctic) – Ute Schuster (UEA, UK) Pacific – Richard Feely (NOAA/PMEL, USA) Southern Ocean – Bronte Tilbrook (CSIRO, Australia) Indian Ocean – V.V.S.S. Sarma (NIO, India) Coastal Ocean – Arthur Chen (National Sun Yat-sen University, Taiwan) and Alberto Borges (U. Liege, Belgium)
Further information
In June 2008, the IOCCP, along with CARBOOCEAN and the SOLAS-IMBER Joint Carbon Group, held a 2nd technical meeting to discuss 2nd level QC and regional synthesis issues. The report from that meeting is now available here.
June 2007
Surface ocean pCO2 variability and vulnerabilities workshop, 11-14 April 2007, UNESCO, Paris, France
Contributed by N.Metzl and B. Tilbrook (co-chairs). In October 2005, the first joint meeting of the IOCCP and the SOLAS-IMBER Carbon group (SIC) was held during the 7th International CO2 conference in Broomfield, Colorado. A major outcome of the Broomfield gathering was an agreement for IOCCP to work with the SIC-SOS sub-group (Surface Ocean Systems) to plan an international workshop on the scientific basis for VOS network design and data synthesis efforts related to CO2 sources and sinks in the ocean. The workshop was titled the Surface Ocean CO2 Variability and Vulnerabilities (SOCOVV), and was planned and held at UNESCO, Paris (co-chairs N.Metzl, IPSL/France, B.Tilbrook, CSIRO/Australia and R.Dargaville/IOCCP). The meeting was co-sponsored by IOCCP, SOLAS, IMBER, and the Global Carbon Project.
The main goals of the meeting were:
(i) to review our knowledge of the air-sea CO2 flux variability and uncertainties from seasonal to decadal scales, and to promote global CO2 data synthesis activities,
(ii) to address new questions regarding the vulnerability of the oceanic carbon cycle,
(iii) to obtain prior to the meeting, at national and regional levels, information on recent and future CO2 VOS lines, time-series stations, and ocean carbon processes studies, and
(iv) to develop future observing system and data management strategies for ocean carbon sources and sinks.
Meeting report published in IMBER Update Issue 7, June 2007.
Meeting report published in Eos Vol. 88, no. 28, 2007.