Changing Times: An International Ocean Biogeochemical Time-Series Workshop

Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, California USA
5-7 November 2008

International Organizing Committee
Chris Sabine, Chair (NOAA PMEL, USA); Tony Koslow (Scripps Institution of Oceanography, USA); Uwe Send (Scripps Institution of Oceanography, USA); Richard Lampitt (National Oceanographic Centre Southampton, UK); Melchor Gonzalez (U. Las Palmas Canary Islands, Spain); Matthew Church (U. Hawaii, USA); Trevor Platt (Plymouth Marine Laboratory, UK), Maria Hood (UNESCO-IOC, France).

About the workshop

Workshop Overview Talks

Station Presentations and Information Sheets

Workshop Report (pdf 1MB)

Back to IOCCP home

About the Workshop

Time-series studies comprised a major component of the Joint Global Ocean Flux Study and are providing a continuing legacy of biogeochemical observations over time scales suitable to examine climate forcing. The Hawaii Ocean Time-series, Bermuda Atlantic Time-series Study and CArbon Retention In A Colored Ocean time-series, for example, now have nearly twenty years of data including a wide array of biogeochemical observations in different ocean regions. Literally hundreds of publications have come from the time-series sites and a whole generation of scientists has had some connection to these sites.

Despite repeated acknowledgement by the international community that time series stations are critical for understanding the processes controlling ocean carbon and biogeochemical cycles, maintaining funding support for these platforms and research programs has been difficult. Without a coordinated network of scientists using the stations in an organized effort, community involvement in these programs has become dispersed. Without international support, it is possible that many programs will not continue in the future. 

In 1999, at the request of and with sponsorship by GOOS, CLIVAR, and POGO, an international group of scientists formed the OceanSITES program to develop a coordinated, interdisciplinary international network of stations, research programs, and scientists to sustain and enhance the use of open-ocean time-series observations.  Although the physical oceanographic community is strongly tied into OceanSITES and biogeochemists are represented on the committee, the biogeochemical community still lacks coordination and involvement. To support and strengthen the ocean carbon and biogeochemical time-series effort, the IOCCP, OceanSITES, POGO, and the U.S. OCB program sponsored a workshop to mobilize the community to better coordinate their time series efforts, to highlight the critical research that can only be carried out using time-series (both ship-board and autonomous) observations and, where possible, to participate in this international network.

The workshop brought together 40 participants from 17 countries to review the scientific rationale for sustained time series observations of carbon and biogeochemistry; the value of networking observations; existing global, regional, and national programmes; needs, interests and emerging issues; technology and development issues; and collaboration and networking needs, interests and possibilities.

The workshop consisted of plenary talks on exciting new science coming from time series studies, brief presentations of time series stations from all 17 countries, and break-out groups to compile basin-scale observing system information, to identify the major science drivers and development of priorities for the next 5-10 years, and to identify regional needs and opportunities for networking and coordination.

The goals for the workshop were to:

• To identify on-going activities and plans using time series observations;
• To examine the suite of observational methods and try to develop standard approaches that will allow more direct comparison of results from different sites;
• To review emergent science from the existing ocean time-series sites;
• To review the balance between ship-based and moored time series sites;
• To identify carbon and biogeochemistry research priorities that can best be addressed through time series observational programs;
• To analyze gaps in the network for addressing research priorities;
• To encourage and facilitate the development of new collaborations using time series networks;
• To explore the potential for using basin-scale and globally networked time series stations;
• To inform the ocean carbon and biogeochemistry community of the OceanSITES global network and data management system for the array; and,
• To facilitate incorporation of ocean time-series data into model ground-truthing, sensitivity and error analyses, and model-data fusion activities.

Products from this meeting will include an on-line station inventory of carbon and biogeochemistry time series work, a workshop report, an EOS or Oceanography magazine article, and possibly plans for a coordination and communication network in collaboration with OceanSITES.

Return

Workshop Overview Talks

Introduction to the Workshop (Chris Sabine) - pdf 600KB

The scientific rationale for sustained time series observations of carbon and biogeochemistry

The Bermuda Atlantic Time-series study: A research platform to study changes in the oligotrophic subtropical North Atlantic (Mike Lomas) - pdf 3MB

Carbon Retention in a Colored Ocean (Eduardo Klein) - pdf 2MB

European Station for Time Series in the Ocean / Canary Islands (Melchor Gonzalez) - pdf 3MB

The Hawaii Ocean Time-series (HOT): Temporal dynamics in ecosystem processes in the subtropical North Pacific Ocean (Matthew Church) - pdf 1.7MB

CalCOFI and the California Current: a 60-year oceanographic, biogeochemical and fisheries time series (Tony Koslow) - pdf 3MB

The scientific value of networking observations

Evolution of automated interdisciplinary time series measurements (Tommy Dickey) - pdf 5MB

The value of networking time series observations (Richard Lampitt) - pdf 3MB

The value of networking time series platforms: in situ measurements of net biological oxygen production at ocean time-series sites (Steve Emerson) - pdf 2MB

Time series of the ocean ecosystem by remote sensing (Trevor Platt) - pdf 4MB

Ocean Acidification (Richard Feely) - pdf 3MB

Global and Regional Programs

OceanSITES (Uwe Send) - pdf 3MB

EuroSITES (Richard Lampitt) - pdf 400KB

ChloroGIN (Nick Hardman-Mountford) - pdf 3MB

NOAA Moored pCO2 Programs (Chris Sabine) - pdf 300KB

Ocean Observatories Initiative (Uwe Send) - pdf 3MB

US Ocean Carbon Biogeochemistry Needs and Interests (Deborah Bronk) - pdf1.5MB

Technology and Development

What are satellite measurements of ocean color radiometry telling us about change in the ocean? (Jim Yoder) - pdf 1MB

Prospects for long-term time-series observations of ocean biogeochemistry using widely distributed, autonomous platforms and sensors (Ken Johnson) - pdf 5MB

Station Presentations and Information Sheets

Atlantic

Pacific

Indian, Southern Ocean, and Multi-basin Stations

Return