IUGG XXI
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SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE ON OCEANIC RESEARCH (SCOR)

Report by Devendra Lal (former IUGG representative)

The principal scientific activities of SCOR continued to be brainstorming on important international scientific programs via small short-lived working groups, and organisations of symposia on critical scientific issues. Administratively it organises general meetings of the SCOR body where besides deciding on the various administrative matters, logistics, budget, etc., it decides on starting new working groups, or disbanding existing ones when they have served their purpose.

Amongst the continuing and very effective programs of SCOR are two programs:

1) Joint Global Ocean Flux Study (JGOFS)

2) SCOR/IOC Scientific Steering Committee for Global Ocean Dynamics (GLOBEC)

with considerable emphasis on the work of several working groups, e.g.:

SCOR has a special emphasis on training programs for students.

SCOR, as an interdisciplinary non-governmental organisation charged by ICSU with the task of promotion of international activities in oceanography, has eminently carried out its goals in the past, and is currently taking a lead in international programs addressing important issues in global climate change. SCOR also serves as an official advisory body to the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO. Finally, SCOR also encourages training of scientists from the developing countries by providing them with grants for travel to scientific meetings.

A copy of SCOR's annual report prepared by Dr. E. Gross, Executive Director of SCOR for 1994 is enclosed for completeness.

SCOR Working Groups as of January 1, 1995


Report by Elizabeth Gross (Executive Director)

Introduction

The Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research is an interdisciplinary, non-governmental organisation charged by ICSU with the promotion of international activities in oceanography. SCOR's scientific activities fall into two categories. The small, short-lived Working Group, created to address narrowly focused scientific topics is the traditional mechanism by which SCOR has operated since its inception in 1957. On the other hand, SCOR has also taken the lead in the planning of longer-term, large-scale international research programs in oceanography which are designed to address issues of the role of the ocean in global climate change. Examples of each of these types of SCOR activities will be discussed below. SCOR also serves as an official scientific advisory body to the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO, and IOC and SCOR cosponsor a number of activities of mutual interest. Lastly, SCOR administers a pro gram of travel awards to marine scientists from developing countries which is made possible through a grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation.

Membership

The members of SCOR are the "Committees for SCOR" which, in 1993, existed in 39 countries. There was one addition to the SCOR membership in 1993 as the Philippines rejoined SCOR after a period of inactivity. A continuing effort is under way to attract new members from those countries where a significant expertise in oceanography exists. Contacts have been made with the oceanographic communities in Oman, Ireland, Venezuela, Vietnam and other countries. Each SCOR Committee nominates three scientists to represent it in SCOR; a number of these individuals are replaced each year. Other individual members of SCOR include the Chairs of all SCOR scientific subsidiary bodies and the representatives of other ICSU organisations.

Vital statistics

Reference to scientific meetings and publications will be found in the discussion of SCOR's scientific activities. In summary, nearly 50 journal articles, books, reports and other publications resulted from SCOR activities during 1993.

Organisational matters

Meetings: The 31st Executive Committee meeting of SCOR took place at the Institute of Oceanology of the Academia Sinica in Qingdao, China in September 1993. Several senior Chinese scientists who had been instrumental in the discussions which brought China into SCOR in 1984 were present at the meeting. All of SCOR's scientific activities were reviewed and plans for activities in 1994 were considered. The Executive Committee disbanded two working groups and created two new ones on the topics of The Comparative Salinity and Density of the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean Basins and The Role of Wave Breaking in Upper Ocean Dynamics. The Executive Committee reviewed the final report of the ICSU Panel which had conducted a review of SCOR in 1992 and agreed that action should be taken on some of its recommendations. In particular, consideration is being given to a mechanism to increase turn over on the SCOR Executive Committee. This may involve a constitutional amendment which will be discussed at the General Meeting in October 1994.

Finances: There has been a gradual improvement in the finances of SCOR since 1991 when there had been concern about the dwindling cash reserve. Nevertheless, funds are still very limited. In addition, nearly two-thirds of SCOR's income is earmarked for specific scientific activities which means that there is almost no capability to undertake new activities without new income. The Strategic Planning Committee established in 1992 continues to investigate new sources of funding for SCOR.

Activities undertaken during 1993

Scientific Meetings:

The traditional SCOR Working Group is a small (8-10 members), international group established to address a specific scientific problem which will benefit from international attention. Working Groups are expected to accomplish their objectives in a relatively short time frame, ideally in less than four years. At the end of 1993, SCOR had 12 active working groups, a number of which met during the year. A few selected achievements of these groups in 1993 include:

WG 75 Methodology for Oceanic CO2 Measurements

The final report of SCOR WG 75 which was published as No. 65 in the series UNESCO Technical Papers in Marine Science. Many of the recommendations of the Working Group have been taken up in the design and implementation of the JGOFS/WOCE global oceanic CO2 survey. WG 75 has been disbanded.

WG 83 Wave Modelling

In April 1993 a first complete draft of the 500 page manuscript for the final report was completed. The title has been changed to "Dynamics and Modelling of Ocean Waves", and a publication agreement has been concluded with Cambridge University Press. Publication is expected in early 1994.

WG 96 Acoustic Monitoring of the World Ocean (with IOC)

The second meeting of WG 96 was held in Brest in June 1993, once again in conjunction with an international symposium on Acoustic Thermometry of Ocean Climate. Acoustic thermometry is a new technology for using the properties of sound propagation in seawater over very long distances to monitor slight changes in ocean temperature. It is a potentially powerful tool for observations of global climatic change. The SCOR WG has provided a much needed mechanism to foster international collaboration in this research where sound transmitters and receivers must be deployed in many different countries around the globe.

WG 97 Physiological Ecology of Harmful Algal Blooms (with IOC)

The first meeting of WG 97 took in October 1993 in conjunction with an international conference on Toxic Marine Phytoplankton. While outbreaks (blooms) of harmful microscopic marine algae are becoming more common, causing great economic losses and health hazards, their environmental causes are poorly understood. The WG began to develop a detailed scientific proposal for funding for a major international symposium on this topic which will take place in 1995.

WG 100 Sediment Coring for Global Change Research

The first meeting of this working group took place in December 1993. Its mandate is to develop international protocols for the collection, curation, sharing and sampling of marine sediment cores which contain a record of Earth's climatological history. There has been growing international recognition that the current suite of global change research programs did not take account of the record contained in marine sediments. Several international workshops involving the paleoceanographic community in the past few years have led to the definition of major global change questions which can only be answered through the study of the marine geological record of climate. Members of WG 100 have been leaders in these discussions. Accordingly, they presented a proposal to SCOR that the WG become the preliminary planning group for a new program to be cosponsored with the PAGES Core Project of IGBP. IMAGES (International Marine Global Change) has as its major objective: to quantify climate and chemical variability of the ocean on time scales of oceanic and cryospheric processes; to determine its sensitivity to identified internal and external forcing, and to determine its role in controlling atmospheric CO2. Under this major scientific objective, IMAGES proposes to co-ordinate a global program to collect and study marine sediment records to address two fundamental questions:

These major issues can only be achieved through the examination of the records preserved in ocean sediments, by a well designed coordinated effort of sampling analysis, and data assimilation.

WG 101 Influence of Sea State on the Atmospheric Drag Coefficient

The WG held its first meeting in June 1993 at Avignon. It developed a schedule for its remaining activities which includes a second meeting in 1994 and a workshop in 1995 which would be the final activity of the group. Users of information about sea surface drag were identified; they include climate modellers, wave modellers, coastal engineers, remote sensers, etc. WG 101 is preparing a list of experiments needed to resolve problems associated with sea state and atmospheric drag. It agreed that a final expression for drag over the ocean will need to be expressed in a number of forms of increasing sophistication or accuracy. Some users who need information on large space and time scales will need a simpler expression that, say, researchers working on gas fluxes across the sea surface.

Training Activities

With the cooperation and support of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission, SCOR's Joint Global Ocean Flux Study organised what is hoped to be the first in a series of training workshops. This took place in Mombasa, Kenya in November and 25 scientists were instructed in the methods for making some of the JGOFS Core Measurements. This workshop was specifically tailored to the interests and needs of scientists from countries participating in the JGOFS Arabian Sea Process Study. The members of the planning group for the study served as instructors for the 2 week workshop. More information on JGOFS is given below.

Activities involving developing countries

SCOR continues to offer travel awards to oceanographers from developing countries. This program is supported through a grant from the US National Science Foundation. During 1993, 36 scientists from 19 countries were able to attend international conferences, workshops and symposia as a result of this program. This does not include the 25 participants in the JGOFS training course discussed above.

Brief Report of Use of 1993 ICSU Grant

ICSU awarded funds to SCOR in 1993 in support of international planning for two of the major ongoing international research programs in oceanography. These are the Joint Global Ocean Flux Study, a Core Project of the IGBP, and the emerging international program on Global Ocean Ecosystem Dynamics. See also the Grant Reporting Forms attached to this report.

Joint Global Ocean Flux Study

A detailed written report with scientific highlights from 1993 from the JGOFS SSC is appended to this report. The SSC met in Carqueiranne, France in September 1993. A new JGOFS Core Project Scientist, Professor Hugh Ducklow (USA) has been appointed to fill the vacancy left by Dr. G.T. Evans who returned to his position in Canada following a three year secondment. Professor John Field (South Africa) replaced Trevor Platt (Canada) as Chair of the JGOFS SSC following the Carqueiranne meeting.

The last year was very active for JGOFS with field programs under way in the Equatorial Pacific, Southern Ocean and Arabian Sea process studies. These are the current "intensive" JGOFS studies. Spatially "extensive" studies include the ongoing global oceanic CO2, pigment and optical surveys being conducted in collaboration with the WOCE Hydrographic Program and preparation for the use of the ocean colour data which will become available following the launch of the SeaWIFS ocean colour sensor in 1994. Temporally "extensive" studies are being conducted at four JGOFS time series stations; near Bermuda, Hawaii, the Canary Islands and off Kerguelen.

A scientific plan for a JGOFS Continental Margins program has been developed by a joint Task Team with the IGBP Core Project on Land-Ocean Interactions in the Coastal Zone and will be published early in 1994. The JGOFS Data Management Task Team has made progress towards practical methods for data exchange using spreadsheets. The Task Team on Global Synthesis and Modelling met following the JGOFS SSC meeting in France and is developing themes for a major international JGOFS Modelling Workshop to be held in 1994 or 1995. The international protocols for the JGOFS Core Measurements have been submitted to a major review and the revised protocols were ready for use at a JGOFS training workshop in Mombasa in November (see above) and for publication by the IOC in early 1994. The Indian Ocean Planning Group members provided instruction at the training workshop in which twenty-five scientists from the region were familiarised with some of the core measurement methods. The IOPG met in Mombasa as well and furthered plans for the Arabian Sea study which will be fully implemented during 1994. The North Atlantic Planning Group held a workshop in Warnemünde in April 1993 at which plans for the final field effort of the JGOFS program were laid. This return to the North Atlantic will build upon the scientific insight gained during the 1989-90 North Atlantic Bloom Experiment with which JGOFS began. The JGOFS SSC has agreed that the international Implementation Plan should be updated biennially and the first revision of the Plan is now under way.

The SCOR General Meeting in 1992 recommended that a review of JGOFS be undertaken by SCOR in 1995 and plans for this were advanced at the SCOR Executive Committee meeting. Such a review will also be required by IGBP and it was suggested that this be done jointly by the two sponsors of JGOFS. The Chairman of IGBP, Peter Liss, agreed. This review should be an open process and it may be achieved through the organisation of a major conference open to the entire scientific community.

Lastly, the Executive Committee received nominations from the JGOFS SSC to fill vacancies in its membership which would be created by the completion of the terms of several members at the end of 1993. The membership of the JGOFS SSC as of January 1, 1994, is given in the annex to this report.

SCOR/IOC Scientific Steering Committee for Global Ocean Ecosystem Dynamics

The last year has seen a focus on the development of an initial science plan for GLOBEC. There have been a number of meetings (see below) and their reports contain many scientific recommendations which must be condensed into a manageable program. Information on these activities were presented to the SCOR Executive Committee by the Chairman of GLOBEC, Brian Rothschild. The GLOBEC reports published during 1993 are annexed to this report. GLOBEC-International has established a strategy centered on the GLOBEC Core Program. It provides a framework in which international, national and regional programs can be linked toward a common goal of understanding zooplankton dynamics in a physical and ecosystem setting. The GCP is evolving into separate but coordinated activities. Several working groups met during the first half of 1993 to develop different aspects of the GCP and to prepare for the full implementation of GLOBEC-International. To date, six scientific planning meetings have taken place:

  1. First international GLOBEC planning meeting (Chair, B. Rothschild, March 3l-April 2, 1992)
  2. GLOBEC.INT working group meeting on Population Dynamics and Physical Variability
    (Chair, D. Cushing, February 1-5, 1993).
  3. GLOBEC.INT working group meeting on Sampling and Observational Systems
    (Chair, T. Dickey, March 30-April 2, 1993)
  4. GLOBEC.INT working group meeting on Cod and Climate Change (Chair, K. Brander,
    June 7-11, 1993)
  5. GLOBEC.INT working group meeting
    on Southern Ocean Planning (Chair,
    J. Stromberg, June 15-17,1993)
  6. GLOBEC.INT working group meeting on Numerical Modelling Sampling and Observation Systems (Chair, A. Robinson,
    July 12-14, 1993)

The reports for these meetings have been published by SCOR in the GLOBEC Report Series.

The GLOBEC Core Program is being developed along two lines. The general scientific approach is being generated by four working groups: Population Dynamics and Physical Variability, Numerical Modelling, Sampling and Observational Systems and GLOBEC Prudence. The resulting scientific focus will be applied to specific ecosystems, the other line of GLOBEC investigation.

The Population Dynamics and Physical Variability Working Group is charged with problem definition and the development of population dynamic, behavioural, and trophodynamic mathematical and conceptual models. Recommendations for both biological and physical process studies were developed at the first working group meeting in February, 1993. The Numerical Modelling Working Group met in July, 1993 and has been charged with incorporating zooplankton population dynamics models into physical fields. The Sampling and Observation Systems Working Group will be expanding the use of modern technologies in estimation of parameters related to zooplankton population dynamics and physical processes. These estimates are critical to the success of both the Population Dynamics and Physical Variability and Numerical Modelling Working Groups. GLOBEC Prudence will be reviewing historical data for its applicability to GLOBEC problems and will be making previously unavailable data accessible through modern data management techniques. This is an essential part of determining the variability of ecosystems and assessing the impacts of global climate change on both biological and physical mechanisms.

The development of the scientific approach so far suggests that the direction of the GLOBEC.INT mission will be achieved along two avenues. The first involves the population dynamics of zooplankton (sensu latu) and is fairly straight forward. The second involves the development of coupled numerical models and observation systems which will involve a significant planning effort and international cooperation.

The idea of coupled numerical physical/biological models and observation systems is associated with the ideas that originally motivated GLOBEC. These involve developing a capability to nowcast and forecast population dynamics of zooplankton in a physical setting in order to better understand the major ecosystem types (as defined by Karl Banse). These nowcasts and forecasts have important applications in global-change issues and fisheries. Such a system would be designed in the context of modern data assimilation and interpolation schemes. It would involve sampling theory considerations and evaluation of cost effectiveness in its design. It would rely heavily on advances which have been made in acoustic and optical sampling and image identification.

The modelling/observation system would be flexible and modular and therefore be deployable in the major ecosystem types (e.g. spring bloom, regions with high nutrient levels and low chlorophyll concentration, upwelling, etc.). It would be aimed at estimating realistic physical and biological fields with mesoscale resolution because these are thought to be the most energetic (and hence, variable) physically and most demanding of density dependent compensatory processes biologically. The regional working groups of GLOBEC: ICES/GLOBEC Cod & Climate Change, Southern Ocean, PICES/GLOBEC Subarctic Pacific, and the currently forming Upwelling Systems are developing scientific plans for their regions to which this modelling/observation system would be applied. It is expected that the system will also be used to address key areas of interest within the national programs.

The modelling/observation system description is, at this point, fairly general. This is because the configuration of this system and its components will require careful analysis; evaluation of feasible configurations; and cost effectiveness. It seems that there is broad scientific support for the development of such a coupled modelling/observational system.

The reports of the scientific meetings will form the basis of the GLOBEC Science Plan. A preliminary outline for this document will be the basis for further development at the GLOBEC Scientific Steering Committee meeting in January, 1994. The completed Science Plan will be presented to the wider community at the GLOBEC Strategic Planning Conference which will be held in Paris in April, 1994. These activities will be followed in six months time by an implementation meeting.
GOFS Committee Membership to December, 1995

Th e potential links between GL OBEC and the IGBP will be considered once the GLOBEC Science Plan has been completed. Jarl Stromberg (who is a member of the GLOBEC SSC) noted that some aspects such as modelling and data management are particularly important for interactions with other programs. At the same time, the Executive Committee felt that the GL OBEC SSC should take great care to avoid ove rlaps with existing IGBP Core Projects.

Conclusion and Future Plans

SCOR has provided input to both ICSU and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission during discussions which led to the signature of a Memorandum of Understanding between ICSU, IOC and WMO on the establishment of a Joint Scientific and Technical Planning Committee for the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS). The scientifically-based development of GOOS which will be a major preoccupation of the oceanographic community for several years to come and SCOR expect to play a significant role in this activity in its capacity as the focus for marine science within ICSU and scientific advisory body to IOC.

The 22nd General Meeting of SCOR will take place at the Institute of Ocean Sciences near Victoria, British Columbia during the week of October 17, 1994. It will include a day-long JGOFS Symposium and scientific lectures from 2 or 3 SCOR working groups Chairs. The SCOR meeting will be preceded by a meeting of the JGOFS SSC.

For further information about SCOR or any of the activities discussed in this report, please contact: Elizabeth Gross, Executive Director of SCOR, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA. Tel: 410-516-4070, Fax: 410-516-4019, OMNET: E.Gross.SCOR, Internet: e.gross.scor@omnet.com.

IUGG XXI
Comptes Rendus

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