SOLAS News 2010

solas news 

issue 12 :: Winter 2011 :: www.solas-int.org 

Photo: two research vessels of the Instituto del Mar del Perú, (in red the Humboldt and in white the Jose Olaya 

Balandra) seen in the Callao Bay, in front of the Institute. Photo taken by William Miller during the Air-sea gas 

fluxes at Eastern Boundary Upwelling and Oxygen Minimum Zones (OMZs) systems meeting. See page 29 

Joint SOLAS-IMBER Ocean Carbon Research 

This issue of SOLAS news focuses on research 

associated with SOLAS Focus 3 - Air-Sea 

Flux of CO2 and Other Long-Lived Radiatively 

Active Gases. Its objective is to characterise the 

air-sea flux of these gases and the boundarylayer 

mechanisms that drive them, in order to 

assess their sensitivity to variations in environmental 

forcing. 

As the two SCOR/IGBP projects, SOLAS and 

IMBER (Integrated Marine Biogeochemistry and 

Ecosystem Research) have direct interest in, 

and responsibilities for, observations and 

research on several aspects of the global ocean 

carbon cycle, they established a joint 

SOLAS/IMBER Carbon Group (SIC Group) in 

collaboration with IOCCP (International Ocean 

Carbon Coordination Project). Recognising the 

need for scientific discussion and coordination 

of marine carbon research, a joint 

implementation plan was developed (available 

at www.solas-int.org). The SIC group is 

currently subdivided into three working groups. 

In this issue you will find an introduction to 

each of these groups’ goals alongside scientific 

articles from researchers involved. 

After such a busy few months, this issue includes 

reports from a wide range of meetings and 

conferences including the SOLAS Mid-Term 

Strategy Initiative meeting on “Air-sea gas fluxes 

at Eastern Boundary Upwelling and Oxygen 

Minimum Zones (OMZs) systems”, GEOTRACES 

Mediterranean and Asia planning workshops, 

the COST Action 735 funded meeting on 

“Atmospheric versus land based controls of 

nutrient cycling and production in the surface 

ocean: from fieldwork to modelling”, IGBP/SCOR 

Fast Track Initiative on ‘Upper ocean nutrient 

limitation: Processes, patterns and potential for 

change' and many more. 

In this issue we also introduce 4 new members of 

the SOLAS Scientific Steering Committee (see In 

Focus) as well as a new SOLAS Project Integrator. 

in this issue... 

scientific contributions 

SOLAS IMBER joint working groups 

on ocean carbon: Tackling the 

marine carbon cycle challenges 02 

Factors that may (or may not) 

affect calcification in foraminifera 04 

Observed changes in dissolved 

inorganic carbon in mode waters: 

the interplay between anthropogenic 

CO2 uptake and ocean variability 06 

Differential impacts of ocean 

acidification amongst genotypes 

of key microalgae 08 

Air-Sea CO2 Fluxes on the Scotian 

Shelf: a temperate continental shelf 

acting as a source for atmospheric CO2 10 

Metabolic gases heterogeneity within 

the upper meters of the ocean surface: 

observations and consequences 11 

Sea Surface pCO2 Mapping in 

the Global Ocean - a Neural 

Network Approach 12 

Mode waters: uptake windows 

of atmospheric CO2 into the 

ocean interior 14 

CO2calc: A User-Friendly Seawater 

Carbon Calculator for Windows, 

Mac OS X, and iOS (iPhone) 16 

Atmospheric CO2 Trends 

Hinder Detection of Oceanic 

CO2 Accumulation 18 

Southern Ocean Carbon – Climate 

Observatory: South Africa’s 

contribution to understanding 

the variability and long term 

trends of ocean – atmosphere 

CO2 gas exchange 20 

Experimental approach towards 

understanding effects of Ocean 

Acidification on Antarctic krill 22 

An update of global interior 

ocean carbon observations 24 

plus... 

COST Action 735 

Special Reports 

including... 

6 partner project reports 

5 National reports 

surface ocean - lower atmosphere study www.solas-int.org

The SOLAS-IMBER working groups on ocean 

carbon were established in October 2005 

with the task to implement the joint SOLAS- 

IMBER Ocean Carbon research plan. Initially, 

three working groups (WG) were defined: 

WG1 and WG2 focusing on the carbon cycle 

in the surface ocean and ocean interior, 

respectively and WG3 tasked with developing 

plans and strategies for ocean manipulation 

experiments. The latter group was refocused 

in September 2009 and became the working 

group on ocean acidification. The groups are 

jointly sponsored by IMBER and SOLAS, but 

also interact strongly with other international 

bodies, especially with the International 

Ocean Carbon Coordination Project (IOCCP). 

Since their inception, the three groups have 

made substantial progress toward the 

accomplishments of their goals, but clearly 

much remains to be done. 

WG1 – Surface Ocean Systems 

Jean-Pierre Gattuso is a Senior CNRS Scientist who coordinates the European Project on Ocean 

Acidification (EPOCA) and chairs the SOLAS-IMBER Working Group on Ocean Acidification. 

His main research interest relates to the cycling of carbon and carbonate, with special emphasis 

on the effects of environmental changes. He is Founding President of the EGU Biogeosciences 

Division and Founding editor-in-chief of the journal Biogeosciences. 

Nicolas Gruber's research focuses on biogeochemical cycles and their interaction with the climate 

system from global to regional scales. His goal is to better understand the physical, chemical and 

biological processes that control these cycles and to be able to make predictions for the future, 

especially with regard to the potential feedbacks between the global carbon cycle and a changing 

climate. His primary research tools are the interpretation and analysis of observational data coupled 

with the use of models ranging in complexity from simple box models to general circulation models. 

Nicolas Metzl has been involved in CO2 cycle research since the WOCE-JGOFS era. He is the 

co-ordinator of a long-term observational project (OISO, Indian and Southern Oceans) for 

understanding the variability of ocean CO2 and air-sea CO2 fluxes. Nicolas has been chair 

of the SOLAS/IMBER Carbon group on Surface Ocean Systems since 2005. 

SOLAS IMBER joint working groups on ocean carbon: 

Tackling the marine carbon cycle challenges 

Jean-Pierre Gattuso 1 , Nicolas Gruber 2 , Nicolas Metzl 3 

1 Laboratoire d'Océanographie, CNRS-UPMC, Villefranche-sur-mer, France 

2 Institute of Biogeochemistry and Pollution Dynamics, Department of Environmental Sciences, ETH Zürich, Switzerland 

3 LOCEAN-IPSL, CNRS, Institut Pierre Simon Laplace , Universite P. et M. Curie - Case 100 4, place Jussieu - 75252 Paris Cedex 5 – France 

Contact: gattuso@obs-vlfr.fr, nicolas.gruber@env.ethz.ch, nicolas.metzl@upmc.fr 

The main goal of the surface ocean working 

group (WG1) is to enable the community to 

estimate the ocean-atmosphere CO2 flux 

globally and regionally with substantially 

higher accuracy than previously possible. 

The key current activity of WG1, to support 

this goal, is the collection and construction of 

an international sea surface pCO2 data-base, 

called SOCAT (Surface Ocean Carbon ATlas, 

see www.socat.info/, Figure 1). In the last two 

years, regional SOCAT meetings have been 

organised to progress on the data quality 

control (QC) and initial syntheses. The QC 

effort has progressed well and the first 

release of SOCAT will take place in 2011. 

The SOCAT product will help the international 

carbon community on various topics: it will 

improve regional and global air-sea CO2 flux 

estimates; it will permit us to evaluate pCO2 

changes and trends; it will offer new 

constraints for atmospheric and oceanic 

inverse methods and it will provide crucial 

data to evaluate ocean and climate models. 

WG2 – Interior Ocean 

The main objective of the interior ocean 

working group (WG2) is to support the global 

community in its effort to determine the 

oceanic uptake, transport, and storage of 

anthropogenic CO2. An additional objective is 

the establishment of a novel observing system 

for ocean biogeochemistry on the basis of 

oxygen sensors mounted on Argo floats. The 

key current activity is the quality control and 

synthesis of interior carbon observations from 

the Repeat Hydrography Program. The goal 

is to establish a global estimate of the change 

in the oceanic storage of anthropogenic CO2 

since the mid 1990s when the first global 

CO2 survey in the ocean was completed. This 

estimate will be of fundamental importance 

for the understanding of the global carbon 

cycle and the fate of the CO2 emitted into 

the atmosphere as a result of human 

activities, as it constrains the second of three 

key reservoirs, leaving only the terrestrial 

biosphere as an unknown. A major step 

toward the accomplishment of this goal is 

the organisation of a joint WG1 and WG2 

international ocean CO2 meeting (about 3-4 

days) in the fall of 2011 in order to prepare 

new analyses and community publications 

in time to be included in the upcoming 

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 

(IPCC) report. 

WG3 – Ocean Acidification 

The main goal of the working group on 

ocean acidification (WG3) is to coordinate 

international research efforts in ocean 

acidification and undertake synthesis activities 

in ocean acidification at the international 

level. Several on-going synthesis activities, 

such as book projects and work by the IPCC 

are endorsed by the working group. One of 

the key current activities is the “SOLAS-IMBER 

ocean acidification coordinating program”, 

a package of activities which are critical to 

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Figure 1 : Map of current fCO2 data (>2100 cruises) in the SOCAT data base (http://www.socat.info/) version 1.3. The Live Access Version of SOCAT 

was developed by Jeremy Malczyk and Steve Hankin at NOAA/PMEL in Seattle, USA. 

Figure 2 : Proposal for an Ocean Acidification 

International Coordination Office (OA-ICO) 

assess the effects of ocean acidification but 

are, for the most part, not funded at national 

or regional levels and must be carried out at 

the international level. Among them are the 

promotion of international experiments, the 

sharing of experimental platforms and the 

undertaking of intercomparison exercises. The 

working group has realised that it does not 

have the time nor the human and financial 

resources to launch any of the activities that 

it has identified. Hence, it is considering 

establishing an “Ocean Acidification 

fC02 recomputed (µatm) (subsampled 4x daily) 

International Coordination Office (OA-ICO)” 

(Figure 2). Ways to achieve its implementation 

will be investigated in the coming months. 

Key joint goals and activities shared 

between the three working groups are the 

establishment and continuous support for 

ocean observing systems and in particular 

the integration of the different observing 

elements into a coherent set of observations. 

To this end, several white papers and plans 

were developed in the context of the 

OceanObs ’09 conference (e.g. Monteiro et 

al., 2010; Gruber et al., 2010a, Hood et al., 

2010, and Feely et al., 2010) and integrated 

into overarching frameworks by Gruber et al. 

(2010b) and Iglesias-Rodriguez et al. (2010). 

References: 

All references taken from Proceedings 

of OceanObs’09: Sustained Ocean 

Observations and Information for Society 

(Vol. 2), Venice, Italy, 21-25 September 

2009, Hall, J., Harrison, D.E. & Stammer, 

D., Eds., ESA Publication WPP-306 

Feely, R., Fabry, V., et al. (2010). 

“An International Observational 

Network for Ocean Acidification" 

doi:10.5270/OceanObs09.cwp.29 

Gruber, N., Doney, S., et al. (2010a). 

"Adding Oxygen to Argo: Developing 

a Global in-situ Observatory for Ocean 

Deoxygenation and Biogeochemistry" 

doi:10.5270/OceanObs09.cwp.39. 

Gruber, N., Körtzinger, A., et al. (2010b). 

"Towards An Integrated Observing 

System For Ocean Carbon and 

Biogeochemistry At a Time of Change" 

doi:10.5270/OceanObs09.pp.18 

Hood, M., Fukasawa, M., et al. (2010). 

"Ship-based Repeat Hydrography: A 

Strategy for a Sustained Global Program." 


Iglesias-Rodriguez, M.D., Anthony, K.R.N., 

et al. (2010). "Developing a Global Ocean 

Acidification Observation Network" 

doi:10.5270/OceanObs09.pp.24 

Monteiro, P. M. S., Schuster, U., et al. 

(2010). “A global sea surface carbon 

observing system: assessment of changing 

sea surface CO2 and air-sea CO2 fluxes” 


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national report 

SOLAS China 

With the successful implementation 

of the SOLAS China national program 

funded as a major NSF-China program 

(2004-2009), SOLAS China continues 

to grow strongly both in terms of its 

community and science. SOLAS China 

has evolved into three major research 

fields: carbon cycle in marginal seas, 

the impact of the ocean acidification, 

and dust deposition and its impact on 

marine ecosystems. Among others, 

on-going projects reflective of these 

progresses include a multiple PI project 

sponsored by China National Basic 

Research Program (973) and also a 

SOLAS endorsed project, the CHOICE-C 

project (Carbon cycling in China Seas - 

budget, controls and ocean 

acidification, 2009-2013). 

Other projects recently funded in the 

field of dust deposition and its impact 

on marine ecosystem are “Response 

of marine ecological system in the 

marginal seas to open ocean of the 

western North Pacific to climate change 

(2010-2013) funded through the 

Strategic Japanese-Chinese Cooperative 

Program on Climate Change, and 

“Biogeochemical Impacts of Asian 

Dust on the North Pacific Ecosystem 

and Climate (2010-2012), funded by 

the Ministry of Science and Technology. 

SOLAS China has recently devoted 

considerable efforts in promoting the 

initiative on studies of “Asian Dust and 

Ocean EcoSystem” (ADOES). SOLAS 

has approved the formation of a Task 

Team of ADOES to examine physical 

and chemical variations of dust aerosol 

during its downwind transportation, 

transport path and layer of dust and its 

deposition flux to northern Pacific 

Oceans and impacts of dust on 

biogeochemistry and ocean 

ecosystems. Thus far, five workshops of 

ADOES have been organized and the 

5th ADOES workshop was just held in 

Nagasaki, Japan from 28 November to 

2 December 2010 jointly organized by 

the SOLAS Japan and SOLAS China 

working groups. 

We anticipate continuous and strong 

growth of SOLAS China and we look 

forward to closer collaborations with 

the international SOLAS community. 

National Representative 

Minhan Dai (mdai@xmu.edu.cn) 

Factors that may (or may not) affect calcification 

in foraminifera 

Antje Funcke, Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, Am Handelshafen 12, D-27570 

Bremerhaven, Germany 

Contact: Antje.Funcke@awi.de 

Antje Funcke obtained a Master degree in Marine Biology 

at the University of Bremen and did her Master thesis at the 

Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research. 

She will continue as a PhD student at Utrecht University, 

concentrating on the effects of magnesium and ocean 

acidification on calcification mechanisms in foraminifera. 

Dissolved magnesium (Mg 2+) levels in seawater 

have varied in the geological past mainly 

due to tectonic processes. Today the Mg 2+ 

concentration is ca. 50 mM and high enough 

to contribute to the inhibition of inorganic 

calcium carbonate (CaCO3) precipitation in the 

sea surface ocean, even though such waters 

are supersaturated with respect to aragonite 

and calcite, two biogenically produced 

CaCO3 polymorphs. Foraminifera (amoeboid 

protists) are a prominent group of organisms 

producing calcite. Most foraminifera 

precipitate low-Mg calcite in spite of the high 

Mg 2+ concentrations in seawater. In order to 

do so, they have to exclude Mg 2+ from the 

calcification site, most likely at the expense 

of metabolic energy. At the calcification site, 

the fluid from which the calcite is precipitated 

has to be supersaturated with respect to low- 

Mg calcite. It could be expected that higher 

supersaturation in seawater would make this 

process more cost-efficient. However, 

seawater saturation of calcite is currently 

decreasing due to ocean acidification (OA), 

a process encompassing the dissolution of 

anthropogenic CO2 in seawater and the 

subsequent decrease of pH (hence the name 

OA) and also the decrease in carbonate ion 

(CO3 2- ) concentrations. Two hypotheses 

derived from the above are as follows: 

1) High Mg 2+ concentrations of seawater 

hamper calcification in foraminifera; and 

2) OA will also hamper calcification. 

To test the first hypothesis and to 

investigate the impact of Mg 2+ on 

calcification in foraminifera, juveniles of 

the low-Mg calcite precipitating foraminifera 

Ammonia tepida were cultured under 

experimental laboratory conditions. A. tepida 

is a cosmopolitan, benthic species, abundant 

in intertidal and shallow water sediments. 

Figure 1 : Growth rates of A. tepida in the different magnesium treatments. Error bars represent standard 

deviations of the mean values. 


Photo caption: A. tepida after building a new chamber 

Treatments were prepared with Mg 2+ 

concentrations at the control level of 

50 mM (close to the average concentration 

of modern seawater); at the elevated level of 

100 mM and at the reduced level of 10 mM. 

It was expected to find highest growth 

rates at Mg 2+ concentrations of 10 mM and 

lowest growth rates at Mg 2+ concentrations 

of 100 mM. Contrary to the expectations, 

results showed the highest growth rates 

of A. tepida at Mg 2+ concentrations of 

modern seawater. Growth rates were only 

slightly lower at Mg 2+ concentrations of 

100 mM, and lowest at Mg 2+ 

concentrations of 10 mM (Figure 1). 

Results show that high Mg 2+ concentrations 

do not severely influence calcification in 

A. tepida. This reflects most likely the 

adaptation of A. tepida to today’s Mg 2+ 

concentrations. Earlier studies (e.g., 

Chang et al. 2004; de Nooijer et al. 2009) 

suggested that foraminifera modify 

endocytosed seawater vacuoles and 

then use them for calcification (Figure 2a). 

A possible pumping of Mg 2+ from the 

seawater vacuoles would probably cost 

more energy than simply removing Mg 2+ via 

exocytosis and would have resulted in much 

lower growth rates. Since this was not the 

case, it can be concluded that A. tepida 

does not use modified seawater vacuoles 

as its calcification fluid. It is rather supposed 

that the cell extracts the necessary ions like 

Ca 2+ and CO3 2- from the vacuoles, while 

residual Mg 2+ is exocytosed (Figure 2b). 

The study showed that the high Mg 2+ 

concentrations of modern seawater do 

not hamper calcification in the foraminifera 

A. tepida. The effects of OA on calcification 

in this species have been investigated by 

colleagues. Their initial results (Dissard et al. 

2010) indicate much less sensitivity to 

carbonate changes than was previously 

found for the planktonic foraminifera 

Orbulina universa (Bijma at al. 1999). 

To draw reliable conclusions regarding 

the effect of OA on calcification, further 

research needs to be done on calcification 

mechanisms and observations of different 

studies need to be combined. Since often 

different species as well as different methods 

are applied, this goal is a challenging, yet 

interesting, task for the future. 

References: 

Bijma J., Spero, H. J., et al. (1999). 

Reassessing foraminiferal stable isotope 

geochemistry: impact of the oceanic 

carbonate system (experimental results). 

In: Use of Proxies in Paleoceanography – 

Examples from the South Atlantic. (G Fischer, 

G Wefer, eds) Springer, Berlin, 489-512. 

Chang V.T.C, Williams R.J.P., et al. (2004). Mg 

and Ca isotope fractionation during CaCO3 

biomineralization. Biochemical and Biophysical 

Research Communications 323: 79-85. 

De Nooijer L.J,, Langer G., et al. (2009). 

Physiological controls on seawater uptake 

and calcification in the benthic foraminifer 

Ammonia tepida. Biogeosciences 6: 

2669-2675. 

Dissard D., Nehrke G., et al. (2010). 

Impact of seawater pCO2 on calcification 

and Mg/Ca and Sr/Ca ratios in benthic 

foraminifera calcite: results from culturing 

experiments with Ammonia tepida. 

Biogeosciences 7: 81-93. 

Figure 2 : Simplified sketch of two possible calcification pathways. Seawater vacuoles are indicated in blue, 

black arrows indicate ion transport over cell membranes. 


SOLAS Canada 

The Canadian International Polar Year 

(IPY) Arctic SOLAS program is reaching 

its end (March 2011). Hence, most 

SOLAS researchers have been busy 

finalising the analysis of the samples 

collected in the High Canadian Arctic 

during the 2008 cruise. These field 

observations were complemented by 

SOLAS related study, carried out as part 

of the IPY Circumpolar Flaw Lead (CFL) 

study in 2007-2008, with a year-round 

wintering of the Canadian icebreaker 

CCGS Amundsen. 

A subset of papers from these closely 

related cruises will be submitted to a 

special IPY Circumpolar Flaw Lead and 

Arctic SOLAS section in Journal of 

Geophysical Research (Oceans or 

Atmospheres) in the next few months. 

Two SOLAS-related cruises were also 

conducted in the North-East Pacific 

during the summer to investigate the 

impact of dust and ash depositions on 

plankton ecosystems and dimethylsulfide 

production as well as to explore how 

changes in pH could affect these 

responses. These cruises were conducted 

in partnership with several researchers 

from the Institute of Ocean Sciences 

(Dept. of Fisheries and Oceans) and 

under the umbrella of a joint Quebec- 

Shandong Provinces research initiative. 

At the Allen Bay ice camp outside 

of Resolute, we conducted an 

interdisciplinary study of carbon dioxide 

and DMS biogeochemistry and fluxes in 

sea ice. As part of the ArcticNet summer 

cruise on the Amundsen, we conducted 

a detailed study, including marine 

organic photochemistry, of air-sea CO2 

exchange in Hudson Bay, looking at 

how the fluxes vary across the salinity 

gradient from fresh to sea waters. Other 

SOLAS relevant work initiated in 2006 

on the Scotian Shelf investigating the 

air-sea fluxes of CO2 and controlling 

mechanisms from short-term to multiannual 

timescales are highlighted 

elsewhere in this SOLAS Newsletter. 

Finally, a Quebec-Shandong workshop 

examining the impacts of ocean 

acidification on marine resources and 

biogeochemical cycles was held in 

Qingdao, China, 6-8 December 2010. 


Maurice Levasseur 

(Maurice.Levasseur@bio.ulaval.ca) 

www.solas-int.org //05


SOLAS Taiwan - ROC 

Long-term Observations and Research 

of the East China Sea (LORECS) is the 

Taiwanese research project most relevant 

to SOLAS. Another integrated project, 

Carbon cycles in Taiwan and the South 

China Sea basin – from monitoring to 

modeling (CarboTaiwan), is also related 

to SOLAS. 

The major goals of LORECS are to 

understand how external forcing 

controls the biogeochemistry and 

ecosystem of the East China Sea. The 

types of external forcing investigated 

include Asian dust storms, typhoons 

and monsoons. In the past decade, 

LORECS scientists have conducted 

repeated expeditions, including 9 

cruises this year, in the East China 

Sea and the adjacent western North 

Pacific. Recently they investigated the 

chemical compositions of Asian dusts 

collected over the same area. They 

found significant amounts of air 

pollutants from the fast developing 

industrial areas in East Asia as an 

important source of aerosol materials. 

The bio-availability of many trace 

metals in the dust is enhanced by the 

presence of air pollutants due to the 

acids in the aerosols. 

In addition, the anthropogenic materials 

also contain nutrient elements, which 

may fertilise the oligotrophic ocean. 

Another aspect of the project focused 

on how typhoons influence the export 

production. Shortly after the passing of 

Typhoons Fengwong and Sinlaku off 

north-eastern Taiwan in 2008, scientists 

observed sea surface temperature drop 

by an average of 3 o C resulting from 

enhanced upwelling. By deploying 

floating traps, they found the sinking 

flux of particulate organic carbon 

increased by up to 70% above the 

normal level of 140-180 mg C m -2 d -1 . 

Numerical models have been developed 

to investigate the coupling between 

physical and biogeochemical processes 

in the East China Sea. Numerical 

experiments have demonstrated solar 

radiation as the main control of the 

seasonal variation of primary production 

in the East China Sea, while the riverine 

nutrient loading further boosts the high 

productivity in summer. 


Gwo-Ching Gong 

(gcgong@mail.ntou.edu.tw) 

Claire Lo Monaco has been a Research Associate in marine 

biogeochemistry at LOCEAN-IPSL (Paris, France) since 2006. 

Her research is focused on observing and understanding the 

changes in the Southern Ocean carbon cycle in relation to 

global changes. 

Observed changes in dissolved inorganic carbon in 

mode waters: the interplay between anthropogenic 

CO2 uptake and ocean variability 

Claire Lo Monaco 1 , Nicolas Metzl 1 and Andrew Lenton 2 

1Laboratoire d'Océanographie et du Climat: Expérimentation et Approches Numériques - LOCEAN/IPSL - 

Université Paris 6 - 4 place Jussieu - 75252 Paris cedex 5 - France. 

2CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research - Castray Esplanade - Hobart, Tasmania 7000, Australia. 

Contact: claire.lomonaco@locean-ipsl.upmc.fr 

Understanding the current perturbations of 

the ocean carbon cycle is crucial to identify 

the potential feedback to climate change. 

The invasion of anthropogenic CO2 in the 

ocean has been one of the major concerns. 

Different methods were developed to derive 

anthropogenic CO2 concentrations from ocean 

observation, all assuming that the ocean 

operates at steady state (Vazquez-Rodriguez 

et al., 2009; Khatiwala et al., 2009). However, 

climate variability may also impact on the 

distribution of dissolved inorganic carbon in 

the ocean (e.g. Rodgers et al., 2009). Here 

we investigate these changes observed in 

the South Indian Ocean, a region where 

anthropogenic CO2 is believed to accumulate 

rapidly, (e.g. Khatiwala et al., 2009). 

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Mode waters are key in this oceanic uptake by 

providing a direct pathway between the surface 

and interior ocean at mid-latitudes (Figure 1). 

We compared measurements collected 15 

years apart during the INDIGO and OISO 

cruises, which form part of the new quality 

controlled CARINA dataset (Lo Monaco et 

al., 2010). Dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) 

measurements show a clear increase in mode 

waters by 5-10 µmol/kg over the 15-year 

period (Figure 2a). This signal, however, is 

lower than the 15 µmol/kg increase expected 

by assuming oceanic CO2 uptake is close to 

the trend in atmospheric CO2. The INDIGO and 

OISO data also allow the anthropogenic CO2 

(Cant) increase to be calculated over this time 

period using different calculation methods. 

Cant µmol/kg 

Figure 1 : Distribution of anthropogenic carbon (Cant) at 500m estimated from observations collected in the 1990’s 

during WOCE (1995-1996, black circles) and OISO cruises (1998-2001, grey triangles). Cant calculation is derived 

from Lo Monaco et al. (2005). Inverted triangles show the position of the historical data INDIGO1 (1985). 

Potential density (σθ) is also shown (grey lines). 

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In mode waters, all methods lead to the 

same conclusion: the increase in Cant was 

larger than the increase in DIC by about 

5µmol/kg (Figure 2). 

To try and understand what is driving the 

decoupling between the increase in Cant 

and DIC, and to understand its implication, 

we used the IPSL ocean biogeochemical 

model (OPA-PISCES). The model simulations 

show changes in Cant and DIC consistent 

with those observed in the Western Indian 

Ocean over the same period, which suggests 

that a decrease in natural (pre-industrial) DIC 

occurred at intermediate depths (500-1500 m). 

This decrease appears to be associated with 

a change in ocean dynamics (slow down 

and/or shift southwards of the subtropical 

gyre circulation) in response to a strengthening 

Southern Annular Mode. Interestingly, the 

changes that are observed and simulated in 

the Southern Indian Ocean do occur over 

much of the Southern Hemisphere, warranting 

further investigation. The recently published 

CARINA Southern Ocean data synthesis will 

be critical in furthering this work, thereby 

aiding in our outstanding of how these critical 

regions have changed and to better project 

how they may evolve in the future. 

References: 

Khatiwala, S., Primeau, F., et al. (2009). 

Reconstruction of the history of anthropogenic 

CO2 concentrations in the ocean. Nature. 

462, doi: 10.1038/nature08526. 

Lo Monaco, C., Alvarez, M., et al. (2010). 

Assessing the internal consistency of the CARINA 

database in the Indian sector of the Southern 

Ocean. Earth System Science Data. 2: 51-70. 

Lo Monaco, C., Metzl, N., et al. (2005). 

Anthropogenic CO2 in the Southern Ocean: 

distribution and inventory at the Indo-Atlantic 

boundary (WOCE line I6), J. Geophys. Res. 

110, C06010, doi:10.1029/2004JC002643. 

Rodgers, K. B., Key, R. M., et al. (2009), 

Using altimetry to help explain patchy 

changes in hydrographic carbon 

measurements. J. Geophys. Res. 114, 

C09013, doi:10.1029/2008JC005183. 

Schlitzer, R. (2010). Ocean Data View, 

http://odv.awi.de. 

Vazquez-Rodriguez, M., Touratier, F., et al. 

(2009). Anthropogenic Carbon Distributions 

in the Atlantic Ocean : databased estimates 

from the Arctic to the Antarctic. 


Acknowledgements: 

The long-term observational project OISO is 

supported by three French institutes, INSU, 

IPEV and IPSL. Warmfull thanks to the captains 

and crews onboard the R.S.S. Marion-Dufresne, 

IPEV and TAAF operational chiefs, and many 

colleagues at IPEV and LOCEAN for their help 

during the cruises. This work was also supported 

by the European Integrated Project CARBOCEAN 

and the national program LEFE/Cyber 

(component of SOLAS-IMBER-France). 

Figure 2 : Decadal changes in dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) and anthropogenic carbon (Cant ) in mode waters 

of the South Indian Ocean (30-40°S, 70-80°E) as a function of potential density (σθ) between 1985 (triangles) and 

the period 1998-2001 (blue dots). In 1985 DIC concentrations were higher just north of the Subantarctic Front at 

35-40°S (light green) than father north at 30°S (dark green). 


SOLAS Ireland 

Upper Ocean Turbulence in the 

Labrador Sea 

The Air-Sea Interaction Profiler (ASIP) 

was successfully deployed in the 

Labrador Sea in May on the CCGS 

Hudson. This project was a 

collaboration with Jonathan Lilly at 

NWRA in Seattle, and the BIO in Halifax, 

and was funded by NUIG as well as the 

NSF. The objectives were to investigate 

the origin of the rapid freshwater 

capping after deep convection which 

takes the form of a thin freshwater 

layer regularly seen across the entire 

600km diameter basin. ASIP was 

deployed on 6 separate occasions and 

acquired over 200 profiles over the 

upper 100m with sub-centimeter 

resolution measurements of shear, 

temperature, salinity, PAR, and velocity. 

Coastal halogen chemistry 

Two sets of chamber experiments were 

carried out in 2010 with participating 

groups from University College Cork 

and NUI Galway. In the first series of 

experiments, iodine oxide particle 

nucleation and growth were measured. 

Particle formation was prompt under 

the high iodine conditions of the 

experiments, but the intermediate 

species OIO was not observed in 

the experiments. A second set of 

experiments was carried out to 

investigate the emission of iodine 

from Laminaria species. Together with 

other recent studies, these experiments 

should shed light on the coastal release 

of iodine and its fate in the atmosphere. 

Exchange at the Air-Sea Interface 

There are four experimental components 

and one integrating modelling 

component to this project. The 

experimental components comprise: 

1) aerosol chemistry gradient fluxes 

measurements; 2) both gradient and 

eddy-correlation measurements of ozone 

fluxes at Mace Head; 3) generating 

different plankton cultures in the 

laboratory and then conducting bubblebursting 

tank experiments into the 

influence of different plankton species 

on primary organic aerosol production 

and the enrichment of organic matter 

in sea spray aerosol; 4) response of 

macroalgae to different environmental 

conditions. The integrating modelling 

activity involves coupling of the REMOTE 

regional climate model to the MPIOM to 

produce a regional-scale N.E. Atlantic 

Earth System model. 


Brian Ward (bward@nuigalway.ie) 



SOLAS France 

Driven by the French initiative 

MISTRALS (Mediterranean Integrated 

STudies at Regional And Local 

Scales) – an interdisciplinary program 

initiated in 2008 - two new projects 

are directly related to SOLAS science: 

(i) ChArMEx (the Chemistry-Aerosol 

Mediterranean Experiment) aims at 

a scientific assessment of the present 

and future state of the atmospheric 

environment and of its impacts in the 

Mediterranean basin; and (ii) MerMeX 

(Marine Ecosystems Response in the 

Mediterranean Experiment) is focused 

on the response of ecosystems to 

modifications of physicophysical and 

chemical forcing at various scales, both 

in time and space, linked to changing 

environmental conditions and 

increasing human pressure. 

The ANR DUNE, running since 2008, 

has demonstrated so far that large clean 

mesocosms are suitable to quantify and 

parameterise the impact of atmospheric 

chemical forcing in a low nutrient, lowchlorophyll 

(LNLC) ecosystem. Several 

specific papers have been published 

during this year. In addition to the 

successful running experiment a new 

field campaign took place this summer in 

the Scandola Preservation area (Corsica). 

The FLATOCOA project on dust flux over 

the southern Ocean (Kerguelen Island) 

started in 2008. The atmospheric total 

deposition flux and the atmospheric 

dust concentration are now measured 

for more than 1 year until 2011 at 

Kerguelen. In addition, another station is 

running from 2010 until 2011 at Crozet 

Island to assess gradient information on 

a 1000 km scale. 

The AMOP (Activité de recherche dédiée 

au Minimum d'Oxygène dans le Pacifique 

tropical sud est) will start end of 2010 in 

collaboration with scientists from Peru, 

Germany, Ireland, Denmark, and Mexico. 

The IBAO project (Iron Biogeochemistry 

from the Atmosphere to the Ocean. 

Role of bioaerosols in the iron 

biogeochemical cycle) started end 

2008. It involves organic and biological 

complexation of iron. 

Continuous activity is running using 

CARIOCA buoys and commercial ship 

equipment to quantify CO2 air-sea 

exchange, as part of the CARBOCEAN 

and LATEX projects. 

More details are on our web site: 

http://www.lisa.u-pec.fr/SOLAS 


Rémi Losno (losno@lisa.univ-paris12.fr) 

Differential impacts of ocean acidification amongst 

genotypes of key microalgae 

David Suggett, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Essex, Colchester, CO4 3SQ 

Contact: dsuggett@essex.ac.uk 

David Suggett specialises in the environmental regulation of 

photosynthesis of phytoplankton and corals, and how this 

affects nutrient cycling and ecosystem metabolism. He has 

developed and applied new bio-optical techniques for examining 

photobiology, physiology and productivity in situ. He completed 

his PhD at the National Oceanography Centre in 2001 and is 

currently a Senior Lecturer at the University of Essex. 

Biogeochemical cycling of nutrients (including 

carbon) by phytoplankton is inherently tied to 

the pH of the ocean: availability of inorganic 

carbon for calcification and photosynthesis is 

a key factor determining the nature and extent 

of ecosystem productivity. Thus it comes as 

no surprise that researchers worldwide have 

examined (and are examining) the response 

of key phytoplankton species to projected 

‘ocean acidification’ (OA) conditions. 

Unfortunately, many reported results appear 

contradictory, thereby limiting insight as to 

how OA will impact ocean productivity 

and biogeochemistry. 

Past efforts have demonstrated that how 

OA impacts marine organisms and processes 

is not only highly complex, but is also critically 

dependent on how researchers experimentally 

mimic OA conditions. Fortunately, the 

international community has recently 

provided a “Guide to best practices” enabling 

methodological discrepancies between studies 

to be evaluated and reconciled (Riebesell et al. 

2010). Fundamental to these efforts has been 

improving available technology to measure 

and control the dissolved inorganic carbon 

(DIC) pool. For example, at Essex, we have 

developed specialised systems for growing 

algae under controlled conditions since 2003: 

NERC-funded projects have included PCcontrolled 

pH-stat systems (e.g. Leonardos 

& Geider 2005) and a CO2-stat system that 

enables complete control of the DIC pool to 

reproduce projected future oceanic conditions 

or targeted examination of key mechanisms 

of inorganic carbon acquisition/usage. We 

have thus been able to begin to address the 

other question that may cause different 

results between studies: do genetic variants 

of the same species all respond to OA in a 

similar manner? 

Our recent research has investigated 

physiological and molecular responses 

amongst genetic variants of two important 

‘model’ phytoplankton species, Symbiodinium 

sp. and Emiliania huxleyi. Both species are 

characterised by large genotypic variability and 

play essential ecological and biogeochemical 

roles: Symbiodinium sp. is a symbiotic 

dinoflagellate of cnidarians, including reef 

building corals (but is also found free-living), 

and thus a key ecosystem engineer. E. huxleyi 

is a globally abundant coccolithophorid and 

contributes significantly to export of organic 

carbon and calcium carbonate from surface 

waters. Importantly, both these species of 

microalgae are expected to exhibit responses 

to altered pH (CO2) as a result of 

inefficient/energetically costly means to 

acquire (E. huxleyi) and utilise (Symbioidnium 

sp.) DIC. Growing various genotypes of these 

two species over the last 2-3 years using our 

pH-stat systems has resulted in some key 

insights (Brading et al. in press, also Figure 1). 

At least three different physiological responses 

appear to be exhibited amongst Symbiodinium 

sp. genotypes under elevated CO2/lower pH: 

i) no change in growth or productivity; ii) an 

increase in productivity but not growth; and 

iii) an increase in growth but not productivity. 

These alternative responses suggest that 

different mechanisms of carbon acquisition 

and utilisation have evolved within this 

species. Similar variability of growth and 

productivity responses is seen when comparing 

genotypes of E.huxleyi (Suggett et al. 

unpublished; Langer et al. 2009); however, 

common patterns of decreased calcification 

(except strain NZEH) and increases of cell size 

are also observed. Another interesting output 

from these experiments has been additional 

examination of trace gas production (M. 

Steinke, pers. comm.) with initial results 

demonstrating significant variability of DMS 

and isoprene production across strains. 

Our results highlight that ‘choice’ of genotype 

for laboratory studies will significantly affect 

how we perceive OA to impact phytoplankton, 

and could also limit our capacity to gauge 

how populations of any one species will 

respond to OA. Even if research efforts expand 

screening capacity to consider more genotypes 


(which of course has time and resource 

implications), our understanding of how 

these various genotypes are spatially and 

temporally distributed in the ocean is also 

limited – thus further constraining the 

ecological/ biogeochemical messages that can 

be conveyed. That said, global efforts are now 

beginning to show that OA is likely to be an 

important selection factor in future oceans. 

Even if species populations simply ‘shuffle’ 

genotypes under higher CO2 so that 

taxonomic diversity remains unaffected (at 

the species level), any change will potentially 

carry biogeochemical implications associated 

with how much organic carbon is fixed (and 

in turn used for production of new cells versus 

cellular maintenance) and exported from 

surface oceans. Thus consideration of the 

interaction of CO2 alongside other climate 

change variables, e.g. temperature and light, 

and for other key microalgal groups, must 

remain a priority for future research. 

References: 

Brading, P., Warner, M.E., et al. (in press). 

Differential impacts of ocean acidification 

upon growth and photosynthesis amongst 

Productivity (fmol O2 cell -1 h -1 ) 

Growth rate (d -1 ) 

1200 

1000 

800 

600 

400 

200 

0.7 

0.6 

0.5 

0.4 

0.3 

0.2 

0.1 

0.0 

phylotypes of Symbiodinium (Dinophyceae). 

Limnol. Oceanogr. 

Langer, B., Nehrke, G. et al. (2009). 

Strain-specific responses of Emiliania huxleyi 

to changing seawater carbonate chemistry. 

Biogeosciences 6: 2637–2646. 

Leonardos N., Geider R.J. (2005). Elevated 

atmospheric carbon dioxide increases 

organic carbon fixation by Emiliania huxleyi 

(Haptophyta) under nutrient limited-high 

light conditions. J. Phycol. 41: 1196-1203. 

Riebesell U., Fabry V. J., et al. (2010). Guide to 

best practices for ocean acidification research 

and data reporting, 260 p. Luxembourg: 

Publications Office of the European Union. 

Suggett D.J. (and numerous others) currently 

unpublished data from 2008-2010 for 4 

strains. An additional 2 strains to be grown 

Jan-Feb 2011. 


Data and concepts presented here represent 

efforts of many collaborators and technicians 

at the University of Essex. Our work is 

supported by NERC grants and the UK Ocean 

Acidification Research Programme. 

A1 A13 A2 B1 

Genotype 

Figure 1 : (redrawn from Brading et al. in press). Experimental data showing the different responses amongst four 

Symbiodinium sp. genotypes to ocean acidification. Types A1 and B1 had the same productivity (photosynthesis 

rate) and growth at 380 and 780 ppmv pCO2, whilst type A2 responded to the raised CO2 by increasing growth, 

and type A13 responded by increasing productivity. For additional details, see Brading et al. in press. 

Integrated Marine 

Biogeochemistry and 

Ecosystem Research (IMBER) 

IMBER is an IGBP-SCOR project that 

aims to understand the physical, 

biological and chemical aspects of 

the ocean’s role in global change and 

effects of global change on the ocean. 

2010 has been an eventful year for 

IMBER. Eileen Hofmann took over as 

Chair of the SSC and when GLOBEC 

ended in March, the ongoing 

programmes - Climate Impacts on 

Top Oceanic Predators (CLIOTOP) and 

Ecosystem Studies of Sub-Arctic Seas 

(ESSAS) were incorporated into IMBER. 

In light of these events, two important 

documents were published 

1. A supplement to the IMBER Science 

Plan containing the recommendations 

of the Task Team, established to assist 

with the merger of IMBER and GLOBEC, 

and 2. ‘The way forward for IMBER’ 

which outlines the plan for IMBER in 

the next few years, was published in 

the IMBER and GLOBEC newsletters. 

IMBER’s biennial summer school was 

held in Brest, France in August in 

collaboration with IUEM and GIS 

Europôle Mer. Over 70 ‘ClimECO2’ 

participants considered A 

Multidisciplinary Approach to 

Oceans, Marine Ecosystems, and 

Society facing Climate Change. 

IMBER IMBIZO ll Integrating marine 

biogeochemistry and ecosystems 

in a changing ocean – Regional 

comparisons took place at the Hellenic 

Centre for Marine Research in Crete, 

Greece in October. Three concurrent 

but interacting workshops within the 

larger meeting structure considered: 

1. The effect of varying element ratios 

on community structure at low trophic 

levels and food quality at mid and high 

trophic levels 

2. Large-scale regional comparisons 

of marine biogeochemistry and 

ecosystem processes: Research 

approaches and results 

3. Sensitivity of marine food webs 

and biogeochemical cycles to 

enhance stratification. 

An IMBER Regional Project Office 

will open at the East China Normal 

University in Shanghai, China in early 

2011. Its initial responsibility will be 

the coordination of IMBER continental 

margins activities. 

Lisa Maddison, 

IMBER Executive Officer, IMBER IPO 

www.imber.info 


Elizabeth Shadwick recently completed her PhD at Dalhousie University. Her research focuses on 

the inorganic carbon system in coastal regions, specifically the Scotian Shelf and the Arctic 

Archipelago. Elizabeth will soon turn her focus to the Southern Ocean, beginning a post-doctoral 

position at at CSIRO/UTAS in Hobart in early 2011. 

Air-Sea CO2 Fluxes on the Scotian Shelf: a temperate continental shelf acting 

as a source for atmospheric CO2 

Elizabeth Shadwick and Helmut Thomas, Department of Oceanography, Dalhousie University, 1355 Oxford Street, Halifax, Nova Scotia, B3H 4J1, Canada 

Contact: Elizabeth.Shadwick@dal.ca 

To better understand the role of the coastal 

ocean in the global ocean carbon budget, 

upscaling schemes have been proposed to 

extrapolate results from studies of individual 

systems globally. A recent synthesis (Chen 

and Borges, 2009) proposes the use of 

temperature and latitudinal characteristics 

to upscale regional findings. These patterns 

suggest that temperate and high-latitude 

coastal oceans act as sinks for atmospheric 

CO2. In light of recent work on the CO2 

system in the Scotian Shelf, we propose 

the inclusion of a hydrographic system 

structure as an additional measure to 

complement attempts at upscaling coastal 

air-sea CO2 fluxes. 

The Scotian Shelf is a temperate continental 

shelf region adjacent to the Gulf of Maine 

and upstream from the South and Middle 

Atlantic Bights. Both the South (Jiang et 

al., 2008) and the Middle Atlantic Bight 

(DeGrandpre et al., 2002) are net sinks 

for atmospheric CO2 in line with Chen and 

Borges (2009). Recent work employing 

high-frequency pCO2 observations, shipboard 

sampling, and remote sensing, 

indicates that the Scotian Shelf acts as a 

source of atmospheric CO2 (Shadwick et 

al., 2010a; 2010b). 

In winter, surface waters are supersaturated 

with respect to atmospheric CO2 despite the 

near-zero water temperature (Figure 1). The 

productive season begins in April; a brief but 

pronounced undersaturation of surface 

waters is observed. Biological production 

continues through October. Surface waters 

warm by roughly 20 o C in summer, increasing 

in pCO2 by more than 150 matm over the 

season. In the absence of summer biological 

production, surface pCO2 would reach values 

on the order of 650 matm (Shadwick et al., 

2010b). In autumn, the surface waters cool, 

decreasing pCO2; over the same period, 

respiration of organic matter increases pCO2. 

In winter, surface CO2 losses to biological 

production and outgassing are balanced by 

the delivery of carbon-rich subsurface water 

via wind-driven and convective mixing and 

episodic upwelling events. The majority of 

the outgassing occurs during autumn and 

winter when the destratification of the water 

column maintains CO2 supersaturation. This 

is in contrast to the interpretation of Chen 

and Borges (2009) for temperate continental 

shelves, which tend to act as sinks for CO2 

in the autumn and winter seasons. 

The timing and extent of the spring bloom, 

and subsequent CO2 draw-down, vary from 

year to year. The overall direction and interannual 

variability of the annual CO2 fluxes 

are preconditioned by temperature and wind. 

This occurs largely through the control of the 

mixed-layer depth and consequently the 

availability of nutrients to fuel the spring 

bloom (Figure 1). It has been suggested that 

a trend of decreasing air-sea pCO2 gradient 

(ΔpCO2), or weakened outgassing, has 

occurred over the last decade (Shadwick et al., 

Figure 1 : A schematic representation of the CO2 system on the Scotian Shelf, which behaves similarly to 

an upwelling system: biologically productive surface waters are supersaturated with respect to atmospheric 

CO2 due to the delivery of carbon-rich subsurface waters (modified from Shadwick et al., 2010). 

2010). This negative trend in ΔpCO2 is 

explained by a cooling of surface waters over 

the same period and is potentially related to a 

negative or near-neutral North Atlantic 

Oscillation (Petrie, 2007). While the opposing 

effects of temperature and biology play and 

important role in controlling surface pCO2 on 

the Scotian Shelf, vertical mixing is also a 

dominant factor. The additional consideration 

of the hydrographic setting in this region 

complements the classification of Chen and 

Borges (2009), facilitating regional upscaling 

with the Scotian Shelf properly represented as 

a source of atmospheric CO2. 

References: 

Chen, C.-T. A., and Borges A. V. (2009). 

Reconciling opposing views on carbon cycling 

in the coastal ocean: Continental shelves as 

sinks and near-shore ecosystems as sources 

of atmospheric CO2. Deep-Sea Res. II. 33: 

L12603, doi:10.1016/j.dsr2.2009.01.001. 

DeGrandpre, M. D., Olbu, G. J., et al. (2002). 

Air-sea CO2 fluxes on the U.S. Middle Atlantic 

Bight. Deep-Sea Res. II. 49: 4355–4367. 

doi:10.1029/2006GL026881. 

Jiang, L.-Q., Cai, W.-J., et al. (2008). Air-sea 

CO2 fluxes on the U.S. South Atlantic Bight: 

Spatial and seasonal variability. J. Geophys. Res. 

113: C07019. doi:10.1029/2007JC004366. 

Petrie, B. (2007). Does the North Atlantic 

Oscillation affect hydrographic properties 

on the Canadian Atlantic continental shelf? 

Atmos.-Ocean. 45:141-151. 

doi:10.3137/ao.450302. 

Shadwick, E. H., Thomas, H., et al. (2010a). 

Air-Sea CO2 fluxes on the Scotian Shelf: 

seasonal to multi-annual variability. 


doi:10.5194/bg-7-3851-2010 

Shadwick, E. H., Thomas, H., et al. (2010b). 

Seasonal variability of dissolved inorganic 

carbon and surface water pCO2 in the 

Scotian Shelf region of the Northwestern 

Atlantic. Mar. Chem. in press. 

doi:10.1016/j.marchem.2010.11.004. 


Maria Calleja received her PhD in Marine Science in 2007 at the Mediterranean Institute of 

Advanced Studies (IMEDEA, CSIC-UIB, Spain) and spent two years as a postdoctoral researcher 

at the University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC). She is interested in biogeochemical processes 

affecting organic and inorganic carbon and nitrogen cycles. 

Metabolic gases heterogeneity within the upper meters of the ocean surface: 

observations and consequences 

Maria Ll. Calleja 1,2 , Carlos M. Duarte 1 , Marta Álvarez 3 , Raquel Vaquer-Sunyer 1 , Susana Agustí 1 , and Gerhard J. Herndl 4 

1 2 Department of Global Change Research. IMEDEA (CSIC-UIB), Mallorca, Spain. Department of Oceanography, University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC), 

USA. 3Spanish Institute of Oceanography (IEO), A Coruña, Spain. 4Department of Marine Biology, University of Vienna, Austria 

Contact: marialluch.calleja@gmail.com 

Our understanding of the global oceanic 

uptake of atmospheric CO2 is mainly derived 

from observed differences in CO2 partial 

pressure (pCO2) between the surface ocean 

and the atmosphere (Takahashi et al., 2002, 

2009). As pCO2 spatial and temporal 

variability in surface water is much greater 

than that of atmospheric CO2, the direction 

and magnitude of the gradient-driven flux is 

mainly regulated by changes in oceanic pCO2. 

Accordingly international efforts have been 

made to assemble a global surface water 

pCO2 data set, now exceeding 3 million 

estimates (Takahashi et al., 2009), capturing 

seasonal and geographical variability 

(http://ioc3.unesco.org/ioccp/UW.html). 

These estimates are largely derived from 

automated underway systems on board 

research vessels and ships of opportunity 

continuously recording the pCO2 in the 

lower atmosphere and subsurface waters. 

These systems commonly sample water 

from 3 to 7 meters below the surface, 

the depth of the intake on the vessel haul 

(Takahashi et al., 2002, 2009) and consider 

these measurements to be representative 

of that at the water surface by assuming 

homogeneous distribution of gases below 

the air-sea diffusive boundary layer. 

Between 2003 and 2007, at seven different 

cruises encompassing a wide range of 

oceanic conditions (North East Subtropical 

Atlantic Ocean, Southern Ocean, Arctic 

Ocean and Mediterranean and Black Seas), 

we tested the assumed vertical homogeneity 

of pCO2 in the upper surface meters. 

A strong and prevalent pCO2 vertical 

variability was observed across the 83 

stations measured. The range of variability 

across the top cm to 5 m profile was quite 

substantial for pCO2 (mean ± SE = 12.6 ± 

1.4 µatm) and the maximum absolute 

vertical difference reached 63 µatm. 

In an attempt to partition this variability 

between a thermodynamic and a biological 

component, the corresponding vertical 

changes in temperature and oxygen 

concentration within this layer were also 

determined. Oxygen concentration also 

showed considerable vertical variability 

within stations (mean ± SE = 6.69 ± 1.03 

µmol O2 Kg -1 ) with a maximum absolute 

difference of 67 µmol O2 Kg -1 . pCO2 

and O2 concentration values differed 

systematically, but not consistently, between 

the top cm and 5 m depth, showing almost 

all possible profiles (see some examples in 

Figure 1). There was neither a significant 

relationship between the wind velocity and 

the range of gas variability, nor with the 

anomalies relative to temperature changes 

(P > 0.05), that accounted for less that 20% 

of the observed vertical pCO2 changes. 

However, we observed a prevalence 

negative relationships between the deviations 

of pCO2 and O2 concentration from the 

values expected from temperature variability, 

pointing out that biological processes likely 

play a significant role in supporting the 

observed pCO2 heterogeneity, and suggesting 

that metabolic effects on pCO2 changes 

within the top meters of the ocean could be 

faster than mixing time scales, confirming 

previous results (Calleja et al. 2005). 

Neglecting the observed heterogeneity 

in metabolic gases and assuming pCO2 

homogeneity within this layer can constitute 

a significant source of error in both the 

magnitude and the direction of air-sea 

CO2 flux estimates. Thus processes affecting 

top meters pCO2 variability should be 

investigated further to improve our 

understanding of air-sea CO2 exchange. 

References: 

Calleja, M.Ll., Duarte, C.M, et al. (2005). 

Control of air-sea CO2 disequilibria in the 

subtropical NE Atlantic by planktonic 

metabolism under the ocean skin. 

Geophys. Res. Lett. 32: L08606, 

doi:10.1029/2004GL022120. 

Takahashi, T., Sutherland, S.C., et al. 

(2002). Global sea-air CO2 flux based on 

climatological surface ocean pCO2, and 

seasonal biological and temperature effects. 

Deep-Sea Res. II. 49: 1601-1622. 

Takahashi, T., Sutherland, S.C., et al. (2009). 

Climatological mean and decadal change in 

surface ocean pCO2, and net sea–air CO2 

flux over the global oceans. Deep-Sea Res. 

II. 56: 554-577. 

Figure 1 : Example of observed pCO2 and O2 concentration vertical profiles within the top metres of the 

ocean. Wind speed at the time of sampling is shown in insert. 


partner project 

Ocean Carbon and 

Biogeochemistry (OCB) 

Upcoming Activities 

22-24 March 2011: OCB Ocean 

Acidification PI Meeting (Woods 

Hole, MA) - an invited workshop for 

lead investigators of funded ocean 

acidification-related research projects to 

promote dialogue and build relationships 

among scientists from all disciplines, 

agency affiliations, and regions. 

23-25 May 2011: OCB Scoping 

Workshop - A Biogeochemical Flux 

program aligned with the Ocean 

Observatories Initiative (OOI) (Woods 

Hole, MA) 

18-21 July 2011: 2011 OCB Summer 

Workshop (Woods Hole, MA) 

Recent Activities 

July 2010 (La Jolla, CA): The 2010 OCB 

Summer workshop included sessions on 

the Arctic, Low-Oxygen Regions, and 

Benthic-Pelagic Coupling – meeting 

report is available in the Nov 2 issue of 

Eos and meeting presentations and 

archived webcasts are available at 

www.whoi.edu/workshops/ocbworksho 

p2010/. 

September 2010 (Honolulu, HI): 

OCB Scoping Workshop Sea change: 

Charting the course for ecological and 

biogeochemical ocean time-series 

research – view workshop website at 

www.whoi.edu/sites/OCB_Time_Series. 

November 2010 (Los Angeles, CA): 

OCB Scoping Workshop The Molecular 

Biology of Biogeochemistry: Using 

molecular methods to link ocean 

chemistry with biological activity – 

view workshop website at 

www.whoi.edu/sites/molbiogeochem. 

A full workshop report is in preparation. 

December 2010: Coastal Synthesis 

Workshop (San Francisco, CA) – a 

joint activity of OCB and the North 

American Carbon Program (NACP) to 

stimulate the synthesis of observational 

and modelling results on carbon cycle 

fluxes and processes along the North 

American continental margins. 

For more information see 

www.whoi.edu/workshops/coastal 

_synthesis/. 

Heather Benway, Executive Officer, 

OCB Project Office 

http://www.us-ocb.org/ 

Maciej Telszewski received a PhD from the University of East 

Anglia (2009) for adapting a neural network technique as a 

tool for estimating time-varying basin-wide distribution of sea 

surface pCO2 in the North Atlantic. He then moved to NIES, 

Japan aiming to understand factors controlling the spatial and 

temporal variability of oceanic pCO2 in the North Pacific. 

Sea Surface pCO2 Mapping in the Global Ocean - 

a Neural Network Approach 

Maciej Telszewski 1 , Shin-ichiro Nakaoka 1 , Yukihiro Nojiri 1 , Chihiro Miyazaki 1 , Norihisa Usui 2 , Vinu Valsala 1 

1 National Institute for Environmental Studies, Center for Global Environmental Research, Tsukuba, Japan 

2Meteorological Research Institute, Tsukuba, Japan 

Contact: maciej.telszewski@nies.go.jp 

The global oceans absorb roughly a quarter of 

the excess CO2 emitted into the atmosphere 

by anthropogenic activities every year. This 

natural uptake (sink) shows large variability at 

interannual and longer timescales, restricting 

our ability to separate potential long-term 

trends which, once confirmed, could have 

complex and important implications for the 

global carbon budget. Several data-based 

and modelling studies have shown at least 

regional evidence for decreasing capacity of 

the global ocean's surface layer to take up 

excess atmospheric CO2, due to the fasterthan-atmospheric 

rise of sea-surface pCO2. 

The primary aim of this work is to identify the 

interannual-to-decadal trends of the pCO2 

over the North Pacific (10-60°N, 120°E-90°W) 

for 2002-2008 and to suggest processes that 

might be responsible. A longer term aim is to 

establish a robust and reliable method for 

estimating the global marine pCO2 field at a 

nearly-online basis. 

Our research utilises an artificial neural 

network as a method for the spatial and 

temporal interpolation of the available 

measurements of marine pCO2. The Self 

Organising Map (SOM) was shown to allow 

a near-real time monitoring of the marine 

pCO2 in the North Atlantic by combining 

in-situ measurements, satellite data and 

operational ocean models (Telszewski et al., 

2009). The current SOM benefits from 

several technical improvements as well as 

major changes of the calculating system 

(Telszewski et al., 2010). However, the 

internal SOM structure remains the same. 

We hypothesise that seawater pCO2 in the 

North Pacific may be parameterised as a 

function of basin-wide available parameters: 

Figure 1 : Mean seasonal distribution of sea surface pCO2 in the North Pacific for winter (top panel) 

and summer (bottom panel) estimated by the Self Organising Map. 


Figure 2 : Eight regions for which we anticipate separate SOM parameterisations before combining them 

into one global pCO2 estimating system. The SOM estimated mean monthly pCO2 field in April 2004 is 

shown for the North Atlantic and the North Pacific 

sea surface temperature, mixed layer depth, 

chlorophyll-a concentrations, sea surface 

height anomalies and sea surface salinity. 

The data set used for this study consists of 

underway measurements of sea surface 

pCO2 collected on four vessels of opportunity, 

regularly crossing the basin between 1998 

and 2008: MV Skaugran, MV Aligator 

Hope, MV Pyxis and MV Trans Future 5 

(http://soop.jp/index.html), combined with 

satellite data and assimilation models' 

outputs. The pioneering, data-based, 

basin-wide estimates of the seasonal and 

interannual pCO2 variability in the North 

Pacific confirm the SOM’s pattern extraction 

capabilities. High resolution of the SOM 

estimates (0.25° _ 0.25°, daily) allows for a 

detailed study of meso-scale processes as well 

as shifts in large scale oceanographic features. 

We find the overall root mean-squared error 

of the data fit to be between 14 and 16 

µatm, depending on the SOM setup. 

Figure 1 shows 7-years mean seasonal maps 

for winter and summer. In the northern North 

Pacific the seasonal pCO2 cycle is controlled 

by the competing effects of changing 

temperature and biological uptake. Despite 

the strong winter-summer thermal forcing 

on pCO2, the SOM rightly estimates that 

the surface ocean warming from winter to 

summer is accompanied by a reduction in 

sea surface pCO2. Also a very high seasonal 

pCO2 amplitude estimated in the western 

high latitude North Pacific (up to 100 µatm) 

and a very low seasonal pCO2 amplitude 

estimated in the neighboring eastern subpolar 

North Pacific (as low as 30 µatm) agree well 

with measurements and climatology 

(Takahashi et al., 2006). 

The interannual pCO2 variability is observed 

as an order of magnitude weaker than 

the seasonal pCO2 cycle. However, a few 

possible spatial and temporal structures of 

the North Pacific pCO2 field are tentatively 

identified as a response to the Pacific Decadal 

Oscillation (PDO). A four-box structure in 

which two positively correlated boxes are 

oriented in the northwest and southeast 

directions and two other negatively correlated 

boxes are oriented in the northeast and 

Surface Ocean - Lower Atmosphere Processes Textbook 

The focus of Surface Ocean-Lower 

Atmosphere Processes is biogeochemical 

interactions between the surface ocean and 

the lower atmosphere. Lectures from the 

2007 Summer School have been developed 

into a textbook ‘Surface Ocean - Lower 

Atmosphere Processes’ (SOLAP). The 

textbook is designed to provide graduate 

students, postdoctoral fellows and 

researchers from a wide range of academic 

backgrounds with a basis for understanding the nature of oceanatmosphere 

interactions and the current research issues in this 

southwest directions are apparent in four 

independent data sources: an assimilation 

model, two forward model solutions and 

SOM estimates. The proposed spatial and 

temporal structures, once verified for the 

North Pacific CO2 fluxes, will be useful in 

separating the secular trend of the surface 

ocean carbon from its interannual variability. 

Based on our experience from the North 

Atlantic and the North Pacific analyses we 

anticipate performing six more basin-wide 

parameterisations which will be eventually 

combined into one global sea surface 

pCO2 estimating system (Figure 2). Such 

maps will constitute an important input for 

monitoring the ever-changing ocean sink 

and source regions. The first CO2 flux 

calculations based on SOM pCO2 maps for 

the North Atlantic have been reported by 

Watson et al. (2009). They used the SOM 

estimates together with a geostatistical 

approach to constrain the North Atlantic 

CO2 uptake for 2005. They define the 

annual uptake to an unprecedented 

precision of about 10%. Work is in progress 

to constrain the fluxes for the North Pacific. 

References: 

Takahashi, T., Sutherland, C.S., et al. (2006). 

Decadal change of the surface water pCO2 

in the North Pacific: A synthesis of 35 years 

of observations. J. Geophys. Res. 111, 

C07S05, doi:10.1029/2005JC003074. 

Telszewski, M., Chazottes, A., et al. (2009). 

Estimating the monthly pCO2 distribution 

in the North Atlantic using a self-organising 

neural network. Biogeosciences, 6 (8), 

1405-1421. 

Telszewski, M., Nojiri, Y.,et al. (2010). 

A neural network based estimates of the 

air-sea flux of CO2 in the North Pacific: 

seasonal and interannual variability. In prep. 

Watson, A. J., Schuster, U., et al. (2009). 

Tracking the variable North Atlantic sink for 

atmospheric CO2. Science 326: 1391-1393. 

area. The book is published by AGU and edited by Corinne Le 

Quéré and Eric Saltzman. 

To find out more about this textbook and 

the SOLAS summer school visit 

www.solas-int.org/summerschool/textbook.htm 

To order your copy visit www.agu.org/pubs/books 

Reference: 

Corinne Le Quéré and Eric S. Saltzman, 

Surface Ocean- Lower Atmosphere Processes, 2009, Geophysical 

Monograph Series, Volume 187, 350 pp., hardbound, 

ISBN 978-0-87590-477-1, AGU Code GM1874771 



Ocean Carbon and Climate 

Change (OCCC) 

The U.S. OCCC Program 

(www.carboncyclescience.gov/) helps 

coordinate ocean biogeochemical 

observations from time-series, 

underway ship transects, repeat 

hydrographic sections, and moored 

and autonomous vehicles and is 

closely linked with the U.S. Ocean 

Carbon and Biogeochemistry (OCB) 

Program. A key element is the U.S Global 

Ocean Carbon and Repeat Hydrography 

Program involving a systematic and 

global re-occupation of select 

WOCE/JGOFS hydrographic sections 

(http://ushydro.ucsd.edu/cruises.htm). 

The overarching goal is to quantify 

changes in the storage and transport 

of heat, fresh water, CO2, and related 

parameters. The program, which 

began field measurements in 2003, 

will mark a major milestone in 2011, 

the completion of the first global 

reoccupation with the planned S4P 

cruise near the ice edge of Antarctica 

on the US Coast guard icebreaker 

Nathaniel B. Palmer and a zonal cruise 

along 30˚S (A10) in the South Atlantic 

on the NOAA ship Ronald H. Brown. 

Analysis of the cruises to date has 

contributed to some major discoveries, 

most notably the clear signals of 

decadal increases in anthropogenic 

CO2 in surface and thermocline waters 

for all the sections occupied. However, 

the quantification is complicated by 

appreciable inter-annual variability and 

trends in biogeochemical parameters. 

The attribution of these trends, often 

most pronounced in the oxygen signal, 

is an active area of research. The cruises 

have also shown changes in the deep 

ocean in heat, transient tracers, and 

carbon suggestion that human induced 

perturbations are starting to be seen in 

most of the world's deep ocean. 

The Repeat Hydrography Program, 

sponsored by NSF and NOAA has an 

open data policy to encourage use. 

Data can be obtained on line at 

http://cchdo.ucsd.edu and 

http://cdiac.ornl.gov/. The files are kept 

current, and data and documentation 

from new US cruises for the program are 

usually placed on line within about one 

month of completion of each expedition. 

The most recent completed cruise was a 

2-leg reoccupation of Pacific Line P06 

(ca. 30°S) carried out from R/V Melville 

during Nov 2009 – Feb 2010. Many of 

the investigators involved in the program 

are engaged in the fledging GO-SHIP 

effort co-sponsored by SOLAS. 

www.carboncyclescience.gov/default.php 

Mode waters: uptake windows of atmospheric CO2 

into the ocean interior 

Masao Ishii, 1-1 Nagamine, Tsukuba, 305-0052 Japan 

Contact: mishii@mri-jma.go.jp 

Masao Ishii is a research scientist at the Meteorological 

Research Institute, Tsukuba, Japan. His research interests focus 

on the marine carbon cycle and aim to understand the natural 

and anthropogenic changes in ocean CO2 by observations. 

By what pathways does atmospheric 

anthropogenic CO2 enter into the vast expanse 

of the global ocean? Over the last few decades, 

our understanding of air-sea CO2 fluxes and 

changes in the ocean interior CO2 inventory has 

improved greatly, but the mechanisms regulating 

these exchanges remain in many ways unknown. 

In the North Pacific, one can find a number of 

important water masses, including Subtropical 

Mode Water (STMW) and Central Mode Water 

(CMW) (Figure 1). Their formation regions 

coincide with the regions of large contemporary 

CO2 fluxes from the atmosphere to the ocean 

(Takahashi et al., 2009), and their distributions in 

the ocean interior coincide with regions of large 

inventories of anthropogenic carbon (Sabine et 

al., 2004). It will be beneficial to evaluate 

quantitatively changes in the interior carbon 

content of these mode waters with available 

observations in order to better understand their 

role in absorbing and subsequently transporting 

anthropogenic CO2 in the ocean interior. 

We have been making measurements of 

dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) in water 

columns repeatedly at a series of stations along 

137°E since 1994. At 30°N for example, we 

have successfully identified the decadal trends 

in DIC concentration on the isopycnal surfaces 

corresponding to upper STMW (σθ~25.0) 

through lower CMW (σθ~26.4) (Figure 2). 

Large temporal variability and a decadal trend 

have also been found for dissolved oxygen. It 

is likely that the observed changes in apparent 

oxygen utilisation (AOU) for these isopcynals 

reflect change in the region of formation and/or 

subsequent interior ventilation pathways, in 

addition to changes in ocean biology. 

In order to correct for these changes reflected 

in AOU, we have calculated what we will 

refer to as preformed DIC concentrations by 

Figure 1 : Sites of time-series observations at 137°E and the approximate distribution of the North 

Pacific Subtropical Mode Water superposed on the mean sea surface dynamic height for 2000-2004. 


Figure 2 : Trend of DIC concentration normalised at salinity of 35 (nDIC) (left), Apparent Oxygen Utilisation 

(middle), and preformed nDIC concentration (right) on isopycnal surfaces at 30°N, 137°E. 

subtracting AOU multiplied by stoichiometric 

CO2/(-O2) ratio of respiration (117/170) from 

the measured DIC concentrations. This reveals 

the DIC concentration of a water mass parcel 

when it was last in contact with the 

atmosphere. The preformed DIC 

concentrations show significant trends 

toward increased concentrations of order 

+0.6±0.2 to +1.1±0.1 µmol kg -1 year -1 for 

CMW and STMW, respectively. These rates are 

compatible with the rate of atmospheric CO2 

increase over the last 15 years, and indicate 

that the large volume of waters in these 

density classes are absorbing and transporting 

anthropogenic carbon from the atmosphere 

into the ocean interior. A preliminary analysis 

of LDEO database (Takahashi et al., 2009) for 

the STMW formation region also shows that 

pCO2 in surface water in winter at σθ~25.2 

is also increasing at a similar rate to that in 

the overlying atmosphere (K. Rodgers, 

private communication). 

An important fraction of anthropogenic CO2 

absorbed within STMW may be expected to 

return to the surface while circulating within 

the extra-tropics and contribute to the longterm 

increase in surface pCO2 and the 

acidification (Midorikawa et al., 2010). 

Yet another fraction would be transmitted 

equatorward within the interior branch of the 

North Pacific Subtropical Cell. In conjunction 

with anthropogenic carbon being transported 

from the South Pacific, it would contribute to 

increasing carbon concentrations for surface 

water in the equatorial Pacific (Ishii et al., 

2009). One would also expect a significant 

export of anthropogenic carbon to the Indian 

Ocean via the Indonesian Throughflow, given 

that the Indonesian Throughflow transport of 

thermocline water is expected to be well in 

excess of 10 Sv for the mean state. 

References: 

Ishii, M., Inoue, H.Y., et al. (2009). Spatial 

variability and decadal trend of the oceanic CO2 

in the western equatorial Pacific warm/fresh 

water. Deep-Sea Res. II. 56: 591–606. 

Midorikawa, T., Ishii, M., et al. (2010). 

Decreasing pH trend estimated from 25-yr 

time-series of carbonate parameters in the 

western North Pacific. Tellus 62B: 649–659. 

Sabine, C., Feely, R.A., et al. (2004). 

The oceanic sink for anthropogenic CO2. 

Science 305: 367–371. 

Takahashi, T., Sutherland, S.C., et al. (2009). 

Climatological mean and decadal change in 

surface ocean pCO2, and net sea-air CO2 

flux over the global oceans. Deep-Sea Res. II. 

56: 554–577. 

New SOLAS National Network – Peru 

SOLAS is pleased to welcome Peru to its network of countries 

conducting research under the 3 SOLAS foci. Instituto del Mar 

del Perú (IMARPE) in Lima, Peru, was the venue for the recent 

SOLAS Mid Term Strategy meeting "Air-sea gas fluxes at Eastern 

Boundary Upwelling and Oxygen Minimum Zones (OMZs) 

systems” (see page 29 for the report) and was attended by many Peruvian researchers. 

Michelle Graco, of IMARPE, takes on the role of National Representative. 


North Pacific Marine Science 

Organization Section on Carbon 

and Climate (PICES CC-S) 

The PICES Section on Carbon and 

Climate (CC-S) was created in the fall 

of 2005 to deal with changing climate 

and biogeochemical cycles in the Pacific 

and its marginal seas. In its first 5 year 

term, CC-S has sponsored topic sessions 

at PICES Annual Meetings ("Decadal 

changes in carbon biogeochemistry in 

the North Pacific", "Anthropogenic 

perturbations of the carbon cycle and 

their impacts in the North Pacific") 

and a special section of the Journal 

of Oceanography (vol. 65 #5, 2009) 

arising from one of these. CC-S oversaw 

the publication of the Guide to Best 

Practices for Ocean CO2 Measurements 

(PICES Special Publication Number 3, 

2007, also listed as IOCCP Report #8). 

The Guide is freely available in 

electronic form from CDIAC at 

http://cdiac.ornl.gov/oceans/Handbook_ 

2007.html 

CC-S is currently coordinating a data 

synthesis project PACIFICA. PACIFICA 

has collected biogeochemical data 

(DIC, TA, nutrients, oxygen, and 

salinity) from more than 200 cruises 

in the Pacific and implemented a set 

of algorithms for crossover analysis 

that permit the construction of a 

basin-wide, consistently calibrated 

data set. The PACIFICA algorithms 

were adapted from CARINA and 

implemented by Toru Suzuki (Japan). 

The data product is expected to be 

publically available in 2011. 

CC-S will be a key coordinating body 

for scientific analysis of the PACIFICA 

and SOCAT data sets for the North 

Pacific, and will continue to be a 

critical resource for other PICES bodies 

addressing issues relating to climate 

change, ocean acidification, and 

deoxygenation. We are interested in 

accepting new members, particularly 

in the area of ocean acidification and 

its ecosystem impacts. Scientists from 

PICES countries interested in becoming 

members should contact CC-S 

members from their home country. 

Other international organisations or 

programs interested in appointing an 

ex officio member should contact 

CC-S co-chairs Jim Christian 

(jim.christian@ec.gc.ca) and 

Toshi Saino (tsaino@jamstec.go.jp), or 

PICES Executive Director Alex Bychkov 

(Bychkov@pices.int). 

http://www.pices.int/members/ 

sections/CC.aspx 



International Ocean Carbon 

Coordination Project (IOCCP) 

Special issue of Oceanography 

Magazine "Celebrating 50 Years of the 

Intergovernmental Oceanographic 

Commission” published 

The Intergovernmental Oceanographic 

Commission (IOC) is being recognised 

for 50 years of outstanding service to 

the community through facilitating 

international cooperation and 

coordination of oceanographic research. 

The articles in this special issue help to 

illuminate five decades of IOC partnerships 

with a myriad of nations in support of 

ocean research, discovery, and the pursuit 

of knowledge about our ocean and its 

importance to the well-being and 

prosperity of nations around the world. 

Updated Repeat Hydrography 

Manual Available On-line 

The Global Ocean Ship-based Repeat 

Hydrographic Investigations Program (GO- 

SHIP) has revised the 1994 WOCE 

Hydrographic Programme manual. The 

GO-SHIP Repeat Hydrography Manual: A 

Collection of Expert Reports and Guidelines 

(www.go-ship.org/HydroMan.html) 

provides detailed instructions for the high 

quality collection and analysis techniques 

of numerous ocean parameters, both 

physical and biogeochemical. Sixteen 

chapters covering CTD methods, discrete 

samples, and underway measurements 

have been reviewed and revised by more 

than 50 experts. 

Fifth Session of (IOCCP) 

Scientific Steering Group 

The Fifth IOCCP Scientific Steering 

Group (SSG) meeting was held 5 

October 2010 in conjunction with the 

COCOS-RECAPP workshop in Viterbo, 

Italy. Chair Chris Sabine (USA) was joined 

by members Dorothee Bakker (UK), 

Melchor Gonzalez (Spain), Alex Kozyr 

(USA), Pedro Monteiro (South Africa), 

Yukihiro Nojiri (Japan), Ute Schuster (UK), 

and Toste Tanhua (Germany). Masao 

Fukasawa (Japan) was unable to attend. 

Nicolas Metzl (France) and Nicolas 

Gruber (Switzerland) represented the 

SOLAS-IMBER Carbon Working Groups. 

The SSG thanked Dorothee Bakker and 

Masao Fukasawa who rotated off after 

six years of dedicated service to IOCCP 

and welcomed new members Jean- 

Pierre Gattuso (France), Are Olsen 

(Norway), Bernadette Sloyan (Australia), 

and Masao Ishii (Japan). Toste Tanhua 

will serve as co-Chair with Chris Sabine 

in 2011 and take over as Chair in 2012. 

Kathy Tedesco, Project Director, IOCCP 

www.ioccp.org 

Lisa L. Robbins is a Senior Scientist at the U.S. Geological 

Survey in St. Petersburg FL studying the flux of carbon in 

coastal and marine waters and the effects of ocean 

acidification on calcifying organisms. Prior to USGS, she was 

a Professor at the University of South Florida for 11 years. 

Joanie Kleypas is a marine ecologist/geologist at the 

National Center for Atmospheric Research with a background 

ranging from fish ecology to coral reef modeling. Her work 

concentrates on the interactions between coral reef ecosystems 

and climate, particularly on the large-scale environmental 

controls on coral reef ecosystems. 

CO2calc: A User-Friendly Seawater Carbon Calculator 

for Windows, Mac OS X, and iOS (iPhone) 

Lisa L. Robbins 1 and Joanie A. Kleypas 2 

1US Geological Survey, 600 4th St. S., St. Petersburg, FL 33705 USA 

2 Oceanography Section, National Center for Atmospheric Research, PO Box 3000, Boulder CO 80305 

Contact: 1 lrobbins@usgs.gov 2 kleypas@ucar.edu 

Scientists who conduct research on the 

chemical behaviour of inorganic carbon in 

seawater have had several “packages” for 

calculating CO2-system chemistry. Ernie 

Lewis and Doug Wallace first undertook 

the monumental effort of sorting through 

the original literature and equations to 

produce CO2SYS (Lewis and Wallace 1998), 

a Windows- based program that has been an 

invaluable and well-documented service to 

the research community. The equations and 

documentation of CO2SYS have since been 

adapted for use within Microsoft Excel 

(Pierrot et al. 2006) and coded for use within 

programming languages such as MatLab (van 

Heuven et al. 2009), and ‘R’ (SeaCarb; Lavigne 

and Gattuso 2010). Unfortunately, these 

programs are not particularly user-friendly, 

or they require a decent understanding of a 

computer language. 

Figure 1 : CO2calc display for selection of constants. 

While walking with our iPhones at the OCB 

Short Course on Ocean Acidification in 

November 2009, we decided that developing 

an iPhone app for CO2SYS would be a novel 

tool for many researchers, and particularly for 

new students of the field. With the excellent 

programming of Mark Hansen and Stephan 

Meylan of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) 

in St. Petersburg, we have developed CO2calc, 

an easy-to-use CO2-system calculator that is 

designed for anyone with a PC, Mac, or 

iPhone (Robbins et al. 2010). Like the other 

calculators, it is largely based on CO2SYS, 

but includes several new developments in 

CO2-system calculations, including options to 

use the dissociation constants of Lueker et al. 

(2000) as well as the constants of Millero 

(2010),constants which are a better fit for 

estuarine waters. An entirely new feature is 

the option to calculate air-sea CO2 fluxes 

according to the gas- transfer- velocity 

formulations of Wanninkhof (1992), 

Nightingale et al. (2000), or Ho et al. (2006). 

CO2calc has an intuitively designed graphical 

user interface for choosing constants (Figure 1) 

and for data entry and results (Figure 2a,b). It 

also includes many additional features such 

as the ability to tag data with date, time, 

latitude/longitude (all of which can be 

automatically retrieved on iPhone 3, 3GS, 4, 

and Windows hosts that have NMEA-enabled 

GPS), sample name, and comments. It also 

allows batch file processing, as well as an 

option to save sample information, data input, 

and calculated results as a comma-separated 

value (CSV) file for use with Microsoft Excel, 

ArcGIS, or other applications; and finally, an 

option to export points with geographic 


a 

Figure 2a and b : CO2calc displays for (A) Input and (B) Results. 

coordinates as a KMZ file for viewing 

and editing in Google Earth. CO2calc 

documentation is provided as a PDF file, 

which on the iPhone version is organised 

into separate tab-based folders. The 

CO2calc programs, for Mac and PC, 

and the link to the iPhone app, are 

available on US Geological Survey sites 

(http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2010/1280/ or 

http://coastal.er.usgs.gov/flash/index.html ) 

and the CDIAC website (http://cdiac.ornl.gov/ 

oceans/CO2SYS_calc_MAC_WIN.html ). 

One important lesson that was learned in 

developing CO2calc is that the small format 

of the iPhone forced the design of the 

interface to be simple and intuitive, so much 

so that the format was adapted for the PC and 

Mac interfaces. We feel this new application 

is not only novel, but also very handy to both 

inexperienced and experienced researchers. 

Disclaimer: 

Any use of trade, product, or firm names is 

for descriptive purposes only and does not 

imply endorsement by the U.S. Government. 

References: 

Young LOICZ Forum 2011-01-19 

Ho, D.T., Law, C.S., et al. (2006). 

Measurements of air-sea gas exchange at 

high wind speeds in the Southern Ocean: 

Implications for global parameterizations. 

Geophy. Res. Lett.33: L16611. 

Lavigne, H. and Gattuso, J.-P. (2010). 

Seacarb: Seawater carbonate chemistry 

with R. R package version 2.3.5. 

http://CRAN.R-project.org/package=seacarb 

Lewis, E. and Wallace, D. (1998). Program 

Developed for CO2 System Calculations, 

ORNL/CDIAC-105, 21 pp. + App. + 

computer code. 

Lueker, T.J., Dickson, A.G. et al.(2000). 

Ocean pCO2 calculated from dissolved 

inorganic carbon, alkalinity, and equations 

for K1 and K2: Validation based on laboratory 

measurements of CO2 in gas and seawater 

at equilibrium: Mar. Chem.70: 105-119. 

Millero, F.J. (2010). Carbonate constants 

for estuarine waters: Mar. Freshw. 

Res.61: 139–142. 

Nightingale, P.D., Malin, G., et al. (2000). 

In situ evaluation of air-sea gas exchange 

parameterizations using novel conservative 

and volatile tracers. Glob. Biogeochem. 

Cycles. 14:373-387. 

Pierrot, D., Lewis, E., et al. (2006). 

MS Excel program developed for CO2 

system calculations: ORNL/CDIAC-105a. 

Robbins, L.L., Hansen, M.E., et al. (2010). 

CO2calc: A User-Friendly Seawater Carbon 

Calculator for Windows, Mac OS X, and 

iOS (iPhone): U.S. Geological Survey Open- 

File Report 2010-1280, 17p. 

van Heuven, S., Pierrot, D., et al. (2009). 

MATLAB program developed for CO2 

system calculations. ORNL/CDIAC-105b. 

Wanninkhof, R. (1992). Relationship 

between wind speed and gas exchange 

over the ocean. Jour. Geophys. Res. 

97 (5): 7373-7382. 

www.solas-int.org //17 

b 

Held concurrently with the LOICZ Open Science Conference 2011 “Coastal Systems, Global Change and 

Sustainability” the Young LOICZ Forum is a combination of OSC sessions and specific, targeted activities for 

early-career scientists and young coastal managers. 

The Young LOICZ Forum takes place 8-15 September 2011. Deadline for applications is 1 April, 2011. 

See http://www.loicz-osc2011.org/ for details of the LOICZ OSC and the Young LOICZ Forum.


Global Carbon Project (GCP) 

The international carbon cycle research 

community is currently coordinating the 

largest, most comprehensive assessment 

it has ever undertaken: the Regional 

Carbon Cycle Assessment and Processes 

(RECCAP). The objective: to establish 

the mean carbon balance and change 

over the period 1990-2009 for all subcontinents 

and ocean basins. 

Three key objectives justify the need 

for such a new assessment of regional 

carbon fluxes and their drivers: (1) To 

provide higher spatial resolution for 

the global carbon balance with the 

aim of improving quantification and 

understanding of drivers, processes 

and hot-spots regions, essential for 

predicting the future evolution of the 

carbon-climate feedback; (2) To address 

a growing demand for a capacity to 

Measure, Report, and Verify (MRV) the 

evolution of regional fluxes and the 

outcomes of climate mitigation policies; 

and (3) To respond to the Group on Earth 

Observations (GEO) in establishing a 

global carbon observing system, as in the 

GEO Carbon Observation Strategy report 

(http://www.globalcarbonproject.org/mis 

c/JournalSummaryGEO.htm). 

RECCAP’s fundamental tenet is to 

establish carbon budgets in each 

region by comparing and reconciling 

multiple bottom-up estimates, which 

include observations and model outputs, 

with the results of regional top-down 

atmospheric CO2 inversions. The effort is 

guided by a methodology that includes 

diverse data with their uncertainties, 

and a 2-tier system that ensures a 

common approach and a minimum set 

of analyses performed by all regions. 

There are 14 regions in the RECCAP 

synthesis, including 10 terrestrial (Africa, 

Arctic tundra, Australia, Europe, Russia, 

East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, 

Central and South America, North 

America) and 4 ocean regions (Atlantic 

+Arctic, Indian, Pacific, Southern Ocean). 

In addition, 8 global syntheses will 

support the integration of the regional 

carbon budgets into a global picture, 

and provide the link to the top-down 

constraints delivered by atmospheric 

observations and inversion models. 

RECCAP is an assessment of the Global 

Carbon Project (GCP) with several 

sponsors including EU-COCOS, USA- 

Carbon Cycle Research Program, and 

Australia-CSIRO. 

Pep Canadell, Executive Director, 

Global Carbon Project 

www.globalcarbonproject.org/reccap 

Atmospheric CO2 Trends Hinder Detection of Oceanic 

CO2 Accumulation 

Nathalie F. Goodkin 1 , Naomi M. Levine 2 , Scott C. Doney 3 , Rik Wanninkhof 4 

1University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR China, 2Harvard University, Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, 

Cambridge, MA USA, 3Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Dept. of Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry, 

Woods Hole, MA USA, 4Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory, NOAA, Miami, FL USA 

Contact: goodkin@hku.hk 

Nathalie Goodkin received her Ph.D. in Chemical Oceanography 

from the MIT/WHOI Joint Program before completing a Post 

Doctoral Fellowship at the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences. 

She is currently an Assistant Professor in the Environmental 

Science Program at the University of Hong Kong. 

The ocean is a critical reservoir in the carbon 

cycle for mitigating the effects of rising 

atmospheric CO2. While the oceanic sink is 

estimated to currently be 25% of annual CO2 

emissions (eg. Le Quéré et al. 2009), this is likely 

to decrease over the next 100 years as ocean 

temperatures increase and the ocean becomes 

saturated with CO2. In order to anticipate 

changes in oceanic uptake, we must improve 

our understanding of how much anthropogenic 

CO2 is currently being absorbed by the ocean. 

Since the 1980s, internationally organised 

field campaigns such as the World Ocean 

Circulation Experiment (WOCE) monitored the 

ocean carbon sink through the collection of 

column hydrographic data. Many of these 

surveys are being repeated every 5-10 years 

through efforts such as the CLIVAR/CO2 repeat 

hydrography program. 

MLR Residuals (µmol/kg) 

30 

20 

10 

0 

A 

Natural variability, however, makes it hard to 

discern increases in anthropogenic derived 

carbon. Therefore, empirical techniques such 

as the extended Multiple Linear Regression 

(eMLR) (eg. Friis et al 2005) are commonly 

used to isolate the anthropogenic carbon 

signal from natural variability. 

In our study (Goodkin et al., submitted), 

we use the Community Climate System 

Model (CCSM) to better understand the 

impacts climate and atmospheric CO2 trends 

may have on estimates of the ocean carbon 

sink on decadal to centennial time scales 

in the Southern Ocean (south of 32°S). 

Specifically, examining the commonly used 

eMLR technique, we find that secular trends 

in both CO2 and temperature decrease the 

reliability of the eMLR technique. 

-10 

2030 

-20 

1990 

-30 

-30 -20 -10 0 10 20 30 

1980 MLR Residuals (µmol/kg) 

Figure 1 : DIC residuals (µmol/kg) across the Southern Ocean from the MLR for 1990 (blue) and 2030 (green) 

versus 1980 MLR residuals. Residuals are calculated for each decade by subtracting model DIC from MLR 

predicted DIC using model output of temperature, salinity, oxygen, phosphate, and alkalinity. 


Error as a percent of Canthro 

40 

35 

30 

25 

20 

15 

10 

5 

0 

B 

0 20 40 60 80 100 

Decade Intervals for eMLR 

Figure 2 : Error in Canthro estimate in the Southern Ocean induced by secular change. The error is calculated 

as the root mean squared error and is presented as an absolute percentage of the change in anthropogenic 

carbon relative to the time elapsed. Error bars are one standard deviation. 

MLR techniques take advantage of 

relationships between dissolved inorganic 

carbon (DIC) and hydrographic properties to 

filter out natural variability. This technique, 

however, depends on a linear relationship 

between DIC and hydrographic properties 

and stable regression residuals through 

time (Figure 1). Non-uniform and nonlinear 

increases in DIC due to variable 

anthropogenic carbon uptake and longterm 

trends in the physical and biological 

Conference Calendar 

state of the ocean result in an increasingly 

non-linear relationship between DIC and 

hydrographic properties with time. 

Ultimately, as the time interval increases, 

the regression residuals no longer cancel 

and our predictive ability decreases. 

After a period of 40 years, the residuals are 

no longer significantly correlated and the 

error in predicted anthropogenic carbon has 

increased to greater than 20% (Figure 2). 

These results are a conservative estimate 

due to low-climate sensitivity of the CCSM 

model and as the analysis was conducted 

using decadal means that average subdecadal 

scale variability. Therefore, we 

believe that significant errors could occur on 

much shorter time scales and that repeat 

observations are needed on the order of 

decades to avoid the impact of secular 

change on the empirical estimates of 

anthropogenic CO2. 

As we approach the 30th anniversary of 

WOCE, the oceanographic community 

recognises the importance of extensive field 

measurements in order to closely monitor 

the role the ocean will play in absorbing 

CO2. For instance, the GO-SHIP effort 

(www.go-ship.org) co-sponsored by SOLAS 

is an international effort towards a sustained 

global survey of the ocean interior. 

References: 

Le Quéré, C., Raupach, M.R., et al. (2009). 

Trends in sources and sinks of carbon 

dioxide, Nat. Geoscii. 2: 831-836. 

Friis, K., Körtzinger, A., et al. (2005). On 

the temporal increase of anthropogenic CO2 

in the subpolar North Atlantic. Deep-Sea 

Res. I. 52:681-698. 

Goodkin, N.F., Levine, N.M., et al. 

(submitted). Impacts of Temporal CO2 and 

Climate Trends on the Detection of Ocean 

Anthropogenic CO2 Accumulation. 

Month Dates Conference Location 

February 13 - 18 American Society of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO) Aquatic 

Sciences Meeting Puerto Rico 

March 22 - 23 SOPRAN Annual Meeting Heidelberg, Germany 

April 03 - 04 The Workshop of Climate Change and Ocean Carbon - Field Observation, 

Remote Sensing and Modeling (a joint workshop of OCCOS and CHOICE-C) Xiamen, China 

April 03 - 08 European Geosciences Union General Assembly 2011 Vienna, Austria 

May 02 - 04 11th Conference on Polar Meteorology and Oceanography Boston, Massachusetts 

May 02 - 06 43rd International Liege Colloquium on Ocean Dynamics Tracers of physical and 

biogeochemical processes, past changes and ongoing anthropogenic impacts Liege, Belgium 

May 22 - 26 IUPAC International Congress on Analytical Sciences 2011 Kyoto, Japan 

May 23 - 26 Ecosystem Studies of Sub-Arctic Seas (ESSAS) Open Science Meeting Seattle, Washington, USA 

June 14 - 18 22nd Pacific Science Conference "Meeting the Challenges of Global Change" Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 

June 20 - 24 Seventh EGU Alexander von Humboldt International Conference on Ocean 

acidification: consequences for marine ecosystems and society Penang, Malaysia 

For more information on forthcoming meetings and events please visit http://www.solas-int.org/news/conferencemeetings/conference.html 


Southern Ocean Carbon – Climate Observatory: South Africa’s contribution to 

understanding the variability and long term trends of ocean – atmosphere CO2 

gas exchange 

Pedro Monteiro CSIR, PO Box 320, Stellenbosch 7599, South Africa 

Contact: pmonteir@csir.co.za 

Pedro Monteiro is an ocean biogeochemist and NRE Research Fellow at CSIR and heads the South 

African Southern Ocean Carbon – Climate Observatory, an inter-institutional programme. He has 

a special interest in the carbon cycle in the Southern Ocean and how its variability and long term 

trends may be linked to sub-seasonal and sub-mesoscale forcing of the mixed layer. 

The Southern Ocean, through its seasonally 

biased under sampling, is not only one of 

the main sources of uncertainty in global 

estimates of ocean – atmosphere CO2 

exchanges but also, through changes in 

the upper and lower cells of the MOC and 

increased mixed layer buoyancy fluxes, a 

modulator of long term trends. This poses 

a challenge to the objective of reducing 

the uncertainties of global CO2 fluxes to 

10% and understanding its sensitivity to 

changing physics and biogeochemical 

drivers (Bonning et al.,2008; Lenton et al., 

2006; 2009; Le Quéré et al., 2009; Doney 

et al., 2009; Monteiro et al., 2010;). 

South Africa is using its comparative 

geographical advantage to contribute 

innovatively to the global effort to address 

the Southern Ocean CO2 challenge and in 

doing so also build a platform to support 

the development of advanced numerical 

and analytical skills. The South African 

programme, Southern Ocean Carbon – 

Climate Observatory (SOCCO) has two 

broad themes: i) the long term observation 

component, which is presently ship-based 

taking advantage of the three logistics 

voyages of the polar supply ship SA Agulhas 

into the Southern Ocean in the spring, 

summer and autumn and ii) a process 

oriented research focus which aims to 

improve our understanding of the drivers 

of the spatial and temporal variability of 

carbon fluxes and air – sea CO2 fluxes. 

The long term observational programme of 

underway pCO2 already contributes to the 

global pCO2 data set coordinated through 

IOCCP – CDIAC - SOCAT as well as building 

a data base of ancillary biogeochemical 

variables (O2/Ar, Chla, 15 N - Production, IOP 

and AOP bio-optics) and physics (underway 

CTD) for the South East Atlantic sector of 

the Atlantic Ocean (Figure 1). Our 

contribution here extends to improving the 

understanding of the links between pCO2 

variability and changes in the mixed layer 

physics through simultaneous very high 

resolution CTD (10 – 20nm) profiles using 

an underway CTD (Figure 2). We have 

completed two years of underway pCO2 

observations and the ancillary observations 

are increasing from year to year. From 

spring 2011 we also aim to begin glider 

missions that will close the mixed layer 

sampling gap between ships and Argo 

floats. Our process oriented research plans 

focus on using high resolution capabilities in 

both observations and modelling to 

understand the role of sub-mesoscale and 

sub-seasonal forcing of the mixed layer and 

its implications for CO2 exchange and 

carbon export into the deep ocean. This 

aims to better understand the sensitivity of 

the carbon cycle to long term trends in 

large scale climate forcing. 

The gaps in data and knowledge in the 

Southern Ocean can only be addressed 

through improved collaboration and 

coordination. SOCCO initially in 

collaboration with our Southern 

Hemisphere colleagues in Australia 

and New Zealand and participation of 

colleagues from Norway, US and France 

have initiated a seasonal cycle – 

mesoscalefocus to understanding the 

sensitivity of the Southern Ocean carbon 

fluxes to changes in large scale climate 

forcing. We are inviting a wider global 

discussion to develop the ideas around a 

two year circumpolar experiment in 2013 

– 2015, probably focused on the 40 – 50 o S 

zone, to understand the roles of subseasonal 

and sub-mesoscale forcing on 

deep ocean carbon export and ocean – 

atmosphere CO2 fluxes. This period will 

coincide with the commissioning of new 

polar research ships by both South Africa 

and Australia. The web site 

www.subantarctic.net will serve as a 

discussion forum for this purpose. 

Figure 1 : The spatial characteristics of surface south east Atlantic Ocean (5m) temperature, salinity and pCO2 in 2008/2009 samples as part of the long term 

observational programme. 


Figure 2 : A meridionaltransect of mixed layer density between Cape Town and Antarctica obtained from 

high resolution underway CTD profiles in the summer of 2009/2010 

References: 

Böning, C.W., Dispert, A., et al. (2008). The 

response of the Antarctic Circumpolar 

Current to recent climate change. Nat. 

Geosci. 1: 864 - 869 doi:10.1038/ngeo362 

Doney, S.C., Tilbrook, B., et al. (2009a). 

Surface-ocean CO2 variability and 

vulnerability. Deep-Sea Res. II. doi: 

10.1016/J.dsr2.2008.12.016. 

SOLAS Summer School 2011 

The 5th SOLAS Summer School will take place in Cargèse, Corsica, 

France from 29 August - 10 September 2011. Over 200 PhD students 

and early stage researchers applied this year and the standard of 

applications, as ever, was very high. The summer school represents an 

invaluable opportunity for participants from around the world to learn 

more about current understanding and recent advances in a wide 

range of SOLAS relevant research from world leading SOLAS scientists. 

The success of the school depends, in large part, on the dedication 

of the schools organising committee, lecturers, international project 

SOLAS Summer School 2011 sponsors as of January 2011 

Bundesministerium für 

Bildung und Forschung 

International Geosphere-Biosphere 

Programme Regional Office Brazil 

Lenton, A., Matear, R.J., et al., (2006). 

Design of an observational strategy for 

quantifying the Southern Ocean uptake of 

CO2. Global Biogeochem. Cy. 20, GB4010, 

doi:10.1029/2005GB002620. 

Lenton, A. Bopp, L., et al., (2009). Strategies 

for high-latitude northern hemisphere CO2 

sampling now and in the future. Deep-Sea 

Res. II. doi:10.1016/j.dsr2.2008.12.008. 

Centre National 

d’Etudes Spatiales 

National Science 

Foundation 

Le Quéré, C., Raupach, M.R., et al. (2009). 

Trends in sources and sinks of carbon 

dioxide, Nat. Geoscii. 2: 831-836. doi: 

10.1038/ngeo689 

Metzl, N. (2009). Decadal increase 

of oceanic carbon dioxide in the 

Southern Indian Ocean surface waters 

(1991–2007). Deep-Sea Res. II. 

doi:10.1016/j.dsr2.2008.12.007 

Monteiro, P., Schuster, U., et al., (2010). A 

global sea surface carbon observing system: 

assessment of changing sea surface CO2 

and air-sea CO2 fluxes. In: Hall, J., Harrison 

D.E. and Stammer, D., Eds., Proceedings of 

the "OceanObs’09: Sustained Ocean 

Observations and Information for Society" 

Conference, Venice, Italy, 21-25 September 

2009, ESA Publication WPP-306 


SOCCO is funded by the CSIR, DST and 

NRF in South Africa and further recognises 

the important contribution by the Norwegian 

RC grant (SOBER project: Prof Richard 

Bellerby) and a Prof. Michael Bender at 

Princeton University. 

office and the generosity of sponsors worldwide. SOLAS would 

particularly like to thank the following for their commitment to 

the SOLAS Summer School 2011. 

SOLAS Summer School Organising Committee 

Emilie Brévière (Germany), Minhai Dai (China), Véronique 

Garçon (France), Jeff Hare (USA), Cliff Law (New Zealand), 

Corinne Le Quéré (UK), Maurice Levasseur (Canada), Peter Liss (UK), 

Trish Quinn (USA), Eric Saltzman (USA), Mitsuo Uematsu (Japan), 

Doug Wallace (Germany). 

Centre National de la 

Recherche Scientifique 

North Marine Pacific 

Science Organisation 

Greencycles II 

Scientific Committee 

on Oceanic Research 

Warm thanks, of course, also goes to the summer school director, lecturers and demonstrators, a list of whom can be found at 

http://www.solas-int.org/summerschool/lecturers.html 


Experimental approach towards understanding effects of Ocean Acidification 

on Antarctic krill 

So Kawaguchi 1,2 , Akio Ishida 3 , and Atsushi Ishimatsu 4 

1 2 Australian Antarctic Division, Kingston Tasmania 7050, Australia, Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre, Sandy Bay, Hobart, 

Tasmania 7001, Australia, 3Research Institute for Global Change, JAMSTEC, Yokohama 236-0001, Japan, 4Nagasaki University, Nagasaki 851-2213, Japan 

Contact: So.Kawaguchi@aad.gov.au 

The Southern Ocean is suggested to be one 

of the earliest ecosystems to be affected by 

ocean acidification because of higher 

solubilities of CO2 and CaCO3 in cold waters 

as well as the upwelling of deep seawater 

containing high CO2 (Feely et al., 2004). 

Nevertheless, most research efforts have 

mainly been directed to understanding how 

tropical and temporal calcifying organisms 

(corals, some phytoplankton, shellfish etc) 

a 

So Kawaguchi is a Principal Research Scientist of the Australian Antarctic Division and leads the 

Australian krill research program. His research focuses on various aspects of Antarctic krill biology 

and ecology including studies into climate change impacts on krill. 

b c 

will be affected by ocean acidification 

(Doney et al., 2009). 

Antarctic krill (hereafter krill) play a key role 

in the Southern Ocean ecosystem being 

both the primary prey for most of the 

Antarctic mega fauna and important grazer 

of the primary production. However, despite 

their critical importance almost nothing is 

known about their CO2 sensitivities. 

The Australian Antarctic Division (AAD) 

operates the only research aquarium where 

a large number of krill have been reared 

and successfully reproduced in captivity for 

research purposes. The AAD has been 

conducting various international collaborative 

experiments using our facility on krill life 

history, physiology, behaviour etc (Kawaguchi 

et al., 2010a). The AAD aquarium has recently 

further developed a capacity to conduct 

studies on effects of ocean acidification on 

krill (Figure 1) (Kawaguchi et al., 2010b). 

Unlike most shallow-water planktonic 

calcifiers, krill eggs sink to the depth of 

700-1000 m during their development 

(Quetin and Ross 1984) where seawater 

pCO2 is generally higher than surface 

waters. Therefore, this habitat environment 

needs to be taken into account when 

designing experiments to assess the impacts 

of increased CO2 on such species 

(Kawaguchi et al. 2010b). 

We recently revealed that there are 

significant negative effects on hatch rates 

at 2000 µatm pCO2 but not at 1000 µatm. 

At 2000 µatm pCO2, development was 

disrupted by gastrulation in 90% of embryos 

and no embryos survived to hatch (Figure 2). 

Krill may have evolved a certain level of 

resistance to increased pCO2, probably 

through their natural exposure from surface 

(380 µatm) to deep-sea pCO2 levels, as a 

result of evolutionary adaptation, but they 

might be highly vulnerable to higher pCO2 

levels (Kawaguchi et al. 2010b). The model 

projection suggests that the seawater pCO2 

Figure 1 : The CO2 experimental system. 

(a) A schematic diagram of the CO2 experimental 

system. Yellow denotes flow path of atmospheric 

air, green denotes flow path of CO2 enriched air, 

blue denotes seawater, red arrows show direction 

of flow (Modified from Kawaguchi et al. 2010b). 

(b) CO2 is mixed with air and then exposed to 

seawater through an equilibrator. (c) Trays of 

chilled seawater holed exposure vessels 

containing eggs. 


is unlikely to reach 2000 µatm within this 

century even at depths, but may exceed 

1000 µatm under the IPCC IS92a scenario 

(Figure 3) (Kawaguchi et al. 2010b). 

It is still difficult to estimate the CO2 

sensitivities of krill in their natural habitat at 

various depths and thereby to what degree 

krill will be affected by the Southern Ocean 

climate change in the coming decades. 

To answer this question we are planning to 

run a series of experiments to establish a 

finer CO2-and-effect relationship in the pCO2 

range between 1000 and 2000 µatm during 

the coming reproductive season. Our ultimate 

goal is to undertake a comprehensive risk 

assessment of rising CO2 level on the lifecycle 

of Antarctic krill for the next 100 years. 

References: 

Doney, S.C., Fabry, V.J., et al. (2009). 

Ocean acidification: the other CO2 problem. 

Ann. Rev. Mar. Sci. 1: 169-192. (doi: 

10.1146/annurev.marine.010908.163834) 

Feely, R.A., Doney, S.C., et al. (2009). 

Present conditions and future changes in a 

high-CO2 world. Oceanography 22, 36-47. 

Kawaguchi, S., King, R., et al. (2010a). 

An experimental aquarium for observing 

the schooling behaviour of Antarctic krill 

(Euphausia superba). Deep-Sea Res. II. 57: 

683–692 doi:10.1016/j.dsr2.2009.10.017 

Kawaguchi, S., Kurihara, H., et al. (2010b). 

Will krill fare well under Southern Ocean 

acidification? Biology Letters. 

doi:10.1098/rsbl.2010.0777 

Quetin, L.B. and Ross, R.M. (1984). Depth 

distribution of developing Euphausia 

superba embryos, predicted from sinking 

rates. Mar. Biol. 79:47-53. 

Figure 2 : Effects of CO2 on krill development. (a) An embryo reared under current surface pCO2 developed into the limb bud stage; 

(b) an embryo reared at 2000 µatm pCO2. (Modified from Kawaguchi et al. 2010b). 

Figure 3 : The vertical profiles of oceanic pCO2 GLODAP in the pre-industrial and present from the GLODAP data (black lines), and 

the model projections under the IP92a scenario (red line) and S650 scenario (blue lines) at 34.5°W, 65.5°S in the Weddell Sea. 

(Modified from Kawaguchi et al. 2010b). 


An update of global interior ocean carbon observations 

Toste Tanhua, Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences, Marine Biogeochemistry, Duesternbrooker Weg 20, D-24105 Kiel, Germany 

Contact: ttanhua@ifm-geomar.de 

Observations of inorganic dissolved carbon 

(DIC) in the interior ocean, and particularly 

the decadal change in DIC concentrations, 

provides an integrated view of the ocean 

uptake of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2). 

Dedicated efforts to conduct measurements 

along the same ship-tracks where the 

carbon parameters have been measured 

previously are commonly referred to as 

“repeat hydrography”, and its advantage 

is that, in principle, the observed change in 

DIC concentration can be regarded as the 

anthropogenic CO2 signal. There are some 

obvious caveats to this approach such as 

variability of circulation, internal waves, 

changes in biological activity etc., but 

some techniques has been developed that 

can deal with some of these issues. 

Repeat hydrography with 

carbon measurements 

Repeat hydrography is being conducted by 

scientists of several nations, for instance by 

90˚N 

60˚N 

30˚N 

EQ 

30˚S 

60˚S 

90˚S 

I06S 

I07N 

Toste Tanhua is a research scientist at the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences in Kiel, Germany. 

His research focuses on anthropogenic trace gases such as CFCs and SF6 as proxies for ocean 

ventilation and for uptake of anthropogenic carbon by the oceans. He is also active in the 

GO-SHIP panel and the International Ocean Carbon Coordination Project (IOCCP). 

I01W 

I03 

I05 

I09N 

I08S 

I01E 

I09S 

I10 

P09 

S04I 

the US repeat hydrography program 

(http://ushydro.ucsd.edu/home.htm) 

but also by several other nations such as 

UK, Germany, Spain, Japan, France, the 

Netherlands etc. A large fraction of the 

repeat hydrography has been carried out 

as part of the Climate Variability and 

Predictability (CLIVAR, http://www.clivar.org/ ) 

program. However, the lack of an international 

agreed program focused on repeat 

hydrography has led to a decrease in transbasin 

sections carried out, as well as a lack 

of coordination and uniform data sharing 

policies. In order to fix this and to better 

optimise the resources towards monitoring 

the change in biogeochemical parameters of 

the interior global ocean, the Global Ocean 

Ship-based Hydrographic Investigations 

Program (GO-SHIP, http://www.go-ship.org/) 

was initialised in 2007. A white paper 

outlining a coordinated program for repeat 

hydrography was presented during the 

OceanObs’09 meeting in 2009, where the 

P10 

SR03 

Rusalca 

P13 

P14N 

P15S 

S04P 

P01 

P02 

need for repeat hydrography was widely 

recognised. The GO-SHIP strategy is based 

on a network of 45 open-ocean hydrographic 

reference sections (Figure 1) that should be 

repeated on regular intervals. On several of 

these sections there are possibilities for 

inclusion of instrumentation for SOLAS 

relevant underway measurements. Some 

obvious candidates are aerosol samplers 

and underway measurements of sea-surface 

pCO2, pH, oxygen etc. Some of these 

measurements are already included on the 

GO-SHIP cruises; on others there might still 

be a possibility to put your instruments on a 

ship. A good place to start looking for a ship 

that covers your favourite part of the ocean 

is the GO-SHIP webpage. 

A revised hydrographic manual 

One important product of the GO-SHIP 

effort is the release of a revised hydrographic 

manual (GO-SHIP, 2010; available at 

www.go-ship.org/HydroMan.html ) that aims 

90˚E 180˚W 90˚W 0˚ 

//24 surface ocean - lower atmosphere study 

P16N 

P16S 

Decadal survey 

P04 

P06 

High frequency lines 

Barrow + Nares Straits 

Barrow - Svalbard Line 

Figure 1 : A map of the GO-SHIP reference sections, i.e. coast-to-coast (or ice) repeat sections following WOCE station spacing and full depth sampling of “core-variables”. 

P18 

Davis Strait 

A21 

A22 

A20 

AR7W 

A05 

A01E 

A02 

A12/SR04 

A16S 

A16N 

A10 

75N 

O 

OVIDE 

A13.5 

Ocean Data View

at ensuring that measurements made 

by different groups are comparable, 

compatible, and of the highest quality 

possible. In the 15 years since the original 

publication of the WOCE Hydrographic 

Programme manual, many methods and 

techniques have changed and new sensors 

have been developed. The GO-SHIP 

manual provides detailed instructions for 

the high quality collection and analysis 

techniques of numerous ocean parameters, 

both physical and biogeochemical. The 

GO-SHIP group encourages you to consult 

these manuals to ensure that your data will 

have the highest possible quality. 

New interior ocean carbon 

data products 

Data of interior ocean carbon is regularly 

being submitted to the data centres, 

particularly to the Carbon Dioxide 

Information and Analysis Centre (CDIAC, 

http://cdiac.ornl.gov/oceans/). It is obviously 

very important that data is made available 

to the data centres in order to obtain an 

as complete picture as possible of the 

changes in the global carbon inventory. 

Recent news on the interior carbon data 

collections includes the completion of the 

CARINA (Carbon in the Atlantic Ocean) 

data collection. CARINA consists of quality 

controlled carbon relevant data from 188 

cruises in the Arctic, Atlantic and Southern 

Oceans, and can be found at CDIAC 

(http://cdiac.ornl.gov/oceans/CARINA/ ). 

The CARINA data collection is described in 

detail in a special issue of Earth System 

Science Data (e.g. Key et al., 2010; 

http://www.earth-syst-sci-data-discuss.net/ 

special_issue2.html). Another new and 

very exciting data collection focuses on 

the Pacific Ocean and will soon be 

finalised; the Pacific Ocean Interior Carbon 

(PACIFCA) data collection. PACIFICA 

currently contains data from about 260 

cruises and can also be found at CDIAC 

(http://cdiac.ornl.gov/oceans/PACIFICA/). 

References: 

GO-SHIP Repeat Hydrography Manual: 

A Collection of Expert Reports and 

Guidelines, IOCCP Report No. 14, ICPO 

Publication Series No. 134, Version 1, 2010. 

Key, R. M., Tanhua, T., et al. (2010). 

The CARINA data synthesis project: 

introduction and overview, Earth System 

Science Data 2, 105-121. 

In Focus 

In Focus 

The SOLAS Scientific Steering Committee would like to extend a warm welcome to new 

members Diego Gaiero (Argentina), Christoph Garbe (Germany), Brian Ward (Ireland) and 

Lisa Miller (Canada), all of whom are introduced below, and extend our thanks to 

departing member Guang-Yu Shi (People's Republic of China). 

Diego Gaiero Contact: dgaiero@efn.uncor.edu 

Diego Gaiero graduated in 1989 in Geology from Cordoba University 

and obtained his Doctorate in Geological Sciences in 1995 at the same 

institution. He next went to the Centre de Geochimie de la Surface, 

Strasbourg (from 1998 to 2000) for a post-doctoral position studying 

the transport of particulate and dissolved matter from Patagonian to the 

South Western Atlantic Ocean. Granted by national (Antorcha, FONCyT) 

and international (IAI, Weizmann Institute) science foundations his work focuses on low 

temperature geochemistry and on improving the understanding of mechanisms of dust 

transport and deposition in Southern South America. Since 2001 has been a researcher 

at CONICET (Argentine´s NSF) and since 2008 a Professor at the School of Geological 

Sciences in Cordoba University. 

Christoph Garbe Contact: Christoph.Garbe@uni-heidelberg.de 

Following his studies of physics at the Universities of Hamburg and 

Heidelberg, Christoph Garbe received his PhD and habilitation degree 

from the University of Heidelberg in 2001 and 2007 respectively. He has 

been guest investigator at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, San 

Diego, CA / USA in 1999 and at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, 

Woods Hole, MA / USA between 2002 and 2004. Currently, Christoph 

Garbe heads his independent research group at the University of Heidelberg, where he 

conducts interdisciplinary research focusing on environmental transport processes and 

image sequence analysis. He is currently involved in applying techniques from thermographic 

imaging of small-scale processes to global observations of trace gases in the polar regions as 

well as to the transport of Saharan dust, both from satellite remote sensing. 

Brian Ward Contact: bward@nuigalway.ie 

Brian Ward completed his PhD in oceanography at the National University 

of Ireland, Galway (NUIG) in 1999. He then spent two years at the 

Geophysical Institute in Bergen Norway as a Marie Curie Fellow where 

he received funding from the Norwegian Research Council to develop the 

SkinDeEP profiler. He subsequently moved to the NOAA/AOML lab in 

Miami to participate in the GasEx2001 field study for about one year. 

Brian then spent four years at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution where he 

developed the Air-Sea Interaction Profiler (ASIP) and participated in several further field 

studies of upper ocean processes and air-sea exchange. 

In 2006 Brian became an Assistant Professor at Old Dominion University in Norfolk VA. 

In 2008 he returned to NUIG as a lecturer and is currently working on upper ocean 

turbulence using the ASIP. Other projects include instrumentation development for air-sea 

greenhouse gas fluxes and a DIC system for the Argo float programme, both funded by 

Science Foundation Ireland. He is also a partner in the FP7 Carbochange project. 

Lisa Miller Contact: Lisa.Miller@dfo-mpo.gc.ca 

Lisa Miller is a climate geochemist at the Institute of Ocean Sciences, the 

Fisheries and Oceans Canada lab in British Columbia. After degrees in 

Chemistry from Humboldt State University and the University of California, 

Santa Cruz, in the U.S., her path to Canada passed through the University 

of Bergen and the Institute of Marine Research in Norway. Her research has 

covered a wide range of topics from trace metal technique development, 

to carbon drawdown by deepwater formation, to radionuclides as tracers of particulate 

export, to carbon cycling in polynyas, to carbonate system geochemistry in sea ice. Despite 

her apparent 5-year attention span, these disparate interests have been unified by an effort 

to ultimately understand how the oceans control atmospheric CO2 concentrations. 


SOLAS Special Reports 


12th Symposium of the International Commission on Atmospheric Chemistry 

and Global Pollution (iCACGP) and 11th Science Conference of the 

International Global Atmosphere Chemistry (IGAC) Project 

11-16 July 2010, Halifax, Canada 

Frank Dentener 

(frank.dentener@jrc.ec.europa.eu) 

The iCACGP/IGAC conference took place 

under the title “Challenging the future” 

and was organised around five themes: 1. 

Climate chemistry interactions, 2. Observing 

atmospheric composition, 3. Chemistry at 

the interfaces, 4. Trace gas and aerosol 

source strengths and 5. Pollutant 

transformation and loss. 

There were 65 oral and over 400 poster 

contributions from ca 370 participants (and 

many young scientists). All presentations are 

available at http://www.icacgp-igac- 

2010.ca. Recurring themes were: 

• organic aerosols: formation processes, 

measurements (techniques) and modelling. 

• tropospheric halogen chemistry: showing 

its apparent ubiquity and impact 

• satellite observations: increasing importance 

for atmospheric chemistry understanding 

and synergetic use in models. 

Yrene M. Astor (yastor@edimar.org) 

Fundación La Salle. EDIMAR, 

Isla de Margarita, Venezuela 

and Carlos Ferreira Santos 

(carlos.d.santos@indp.gov.cv) 

Deputy Coordinator TENATSO – 

Cape Verde (Tropical Eastern North 

Atlantic Time-Series Observatory – 

www.tenatso.com) 

This workshop was funded by Ocean Carbon 

and Biogeochemistry (OCB) and was hosted by 

the University of Hawaii (UH). The principal 

investigators of the three main National 

Science Foundation (NSF) - funded 

biogeochemical time-series (CARIACO, Frank 

Muller-Karger, BATS, Michael Lomas and HOT, 

Matthew Church) composed the steering 

committee, together with other key 

participants (Ken Johnson, MBARI, Susan 

Bahnahan, Ocean Leadership, and Laura 

Lorenzoni, CARIACO). Invited participants that 

had worked at other time-series around the 

• source apportionment aerosol-gas 

techniques, using isotopes and other markers 

• modelling and measurements of HOx 

radicals, pointing to a lack of sufficient 

understanding of hydroxyl chemistry and the 

potential role of recycling reaction pathways. 

The underlying basic laboratory work in 

physical chemistry and kinetics has been 

weakly represented and deserves 

strengthening. Cross disciplinary talks linking 

to other components of earth system (land, 

ocean, stratosphere) were not sufficiently 

represented. Given the educational role of 

such conferences, this issue should be 

addressed in future in close collaboration 

with SOLAS, ILEAPS, and SPARC. 

Integration of atmospheric chemistry 

knowledge with other fields is an arduous 

but valuable exercise. Ongoing interactions 

concern i) air pollution and health, ii) the 

role of pollutants as short-lived climate 

forcers, iii) atmospheric chemistry and 

biosphere / cryosphere. The processes 

world were also present, including TENATSO 

(Cape Verde, Carlos Ferreira-Santos), CALCOFI 

(Tony Koslow) and several European times 

series observatories (ESTOC, CIS, ANTARES, 

PAP, STATION M, DYFAMED, PYLOS etc.), 

represented by the EuroSITES project (Richard 

Lampitt). In total, 65 participants attended the 

workshop representing five different countries. 

The main objective of the workshop was to 

gather members of the OCB community to 

help define future research at the 

aforementioned NSF-supported time-series 

sites. The workshop provided a synthesis of 

ongoing research at the US OCB time-series 

sites, summarised the knowledge gained on 

temporal variability and controls on key 

ecosystem processes and biogeochemical 

cycles though time-series research, highlighted 

capabilities at each of the time-series sites, 

and sought to promote community input in 

identifying priority directions and new 

opportunities for future research at the 

involved are not sufficiently understood to 

accurately assess future impacts on 

atmospheric composition and climate. 

The two key-note speakers John Seinfeld, 

and Douglas Dockery summarised well these 

challenges in the fields of climate modelling 

and understanding of pollution and health 

effects. The IGAC project and the iCACGP will 

actively keep identifying new directions for 

international atmospheric chemistry research: 

reaching out to other research fields departing 

from a strong disciplinary understanding. 

New members of the International 

Commission on Atmospheric Chemistry and 

Global Pollution (www.icacgp.org) and officers 

have been elected. The new officers are John 

Burrows (president), Frank Dentener 

(secretary), and Laura Gallardo (vice-president). 

The next IGAC Conference on “Atmospheric 

Chemistry in the Anthropocene” will be held 

in Beijing, in September 2012. The joint 

iCACGP-IGAC Symposium is planned for 

2014, time and location to be decided. 

Workshop on “Sea Change: Charting the course for ecological and 

biogeochemical ocean time-series research” 

21-23 September 2010, Honolulu, Hawaii 

co-sponsored by SOLAS 

existing time-series sites. The participants 

were members of the international science 

community who were one way or another, 

involved with time-series work. 

Four plenary talks and six informative talks 

provided the basis for discussion. The 

participants were asked to divide into 

working groups, to discuss issues pertinent to: 

1. Critical science directions for the 

ongoing OCB time-series: scope, feedbacks 

and directions. 2. Coordination and 

implementation of novel sensing technologies 

at ocean time-series. 3. Defining future 

ocean time-series science activities. 

Results from the working groups were 

summarised and further discussed by 

the participants. These will be used to 

compile a white paper that will contain 

recommendations for future development 

on time-series observations world wide. 



5th International Symposium on Biological and Environmental Chemistry of 

DMS(P) and Related Compounds 

19-22 October 2010, Goa, India 

Martine Lizotte 

(Martine.Lizotte@qo.ulaval.ca) 

Université Laval (Québec-Océan), 

Québec City, Canada 

Since its first event in 1995 in the 

United States, the International 

Symposium on Biological and Environmental 

Chemistry of Dimethylsulfide (DMS), 

Dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP), and 

Related Compounds has been held roughly 

every four years throughout various countries 

(Netherlands, Canada, and United Kingdom). 

In 2010, India provided the venue for the 5th 

Symposium. Hosted by Drs. M. Dileep Kumar 

and Damodar M. Shenoy and their colleagues, 

the meeting reunited 60 delegates from 12 

countries around the world. 

Abstracts of the presentations listed in the 

scientific program were a vivid reminder of 

the critical role that DMS plays in the global 

biogeochemical sulphur cycle and of its 

influence on the Earth’s climate. Five sessions, 

chaired by members of the international 

scientific advisory board (Drs. G. Malin, J. 

Stefels, M. Levasseur, R. Simó, and S. Belviso), 

covered a vast array of topics including 

regulation and dynamics, ecosystems and 

regional experiments, sea-air fluxes, aerosols 

and climate change, methodology and 

modelling. Both oral and poster presentations 

alike aroused interest, sparked discussions 

and fuelled many exchanges often pursued 

in the outdoor reception and dining area 

overlooking Dias Beach, a beautiful small bay 

at the foot of NIO. 

A few highlights of the meeting included 

the recognition of polar ice and coral reefs 

as sources of DMS for the atmosphere, the 

exploration of alternative explanations to 

the DMS “summer paradox”, progress made 

in identifying novel genes that participate in 

the catabolism of DMSP, reports of field 

studies from the Arctic Ocean to the Indian 

Ocean as well as laboratory and mesocosm 

studies investigating the possible effects of 

environmental stressors, such as ocean 

acidification, temperature rise and others, 

on the production of DMS. 

A final discussion session, led by Dr. T. Bell, 

allowed participants to brainstorm on 

pressing issues related to the future of the 

DMS database. The symposium ended on 

a cheerful note with the prizes for best 

oral and poster presentations awarded to 

Mr. G. Humphries, Ms. M. Fernandes, Mr. D. 

R. Valavala and Ms. E. Ozge. Finally, the 

congenial “Symposium Oscars”, a tradition 

started in Norwich in 2006 and upheld in 

Goa, highlighted various exploits and jovial 

feats of a few participating scientists. 

Photo : Participants gathered for lunch in the outdoor dining area at NIO overlooking Dias beach. 

Photo credit: Dr. M. Levasseur. 

A SOLAS co-sponsored session at the PICES 2010 annual meeting 

22-31 October 2010, Portland, Oregon, U.S.A. 

Huiwang Gao (hwgao@ouc.edu.cn) 

Ocean University of China, 

Qingdao, China 

The PICES 2010 annual meeting (“North 

Pacific Ecosystems Today and Challenges 

in Understanding and Forecasting Change”) 

hosted more than 400 scientists from 16 

countries and included 15 oral and 1 poster 

sessions, and 6 side workshops. 

Session 2 entitled “Understanding the role 

of iron in regulating biogeochemical cycles 

and ecosystem structures in the North Pacific 

Ocean” was co-sponsored by SOLAS and was 

convened by Angelica Peña (Canada), Toshi 

Saino (Japan) and Mark Wells (U.S.A.). The 

objective of this session was to discuss the 

physical, biological and chemical processes 

controlling iron distribution and 

transformation, linkages between iron and 

ecosystem responses, and the progress in 

field observations and modelling studies that 

connect iron cycling with ecosystem 

structures and carbon fluxes in the North 

Pacific Ocean. 

The session consisted of 11 oral presentations 

in which two invited talks were given by Prof. 

J. T. Cullen - Iron speciation and bioavailability: 

Insight gained from analytical chemistry and 

microbial physiology and Prof. Huiwang Gao - 

Response of marine ecosystem to Asian dust 

fertilisation from coastal sea to open ocean. 

Prof. Cullen presented an overview of recent 

progress by chemists and microbial 

physiologists, sometimes working side by side, 

studying how the chemical form of Fe impacts 

its bioavailability. Insights provided by metalmetal 

interactions during microbial uptake 

between Fe and Cd and Fe and Cu in the 

north Pacific were also summarized. Prof. 

Gao presented a study on the response of 

coastal ecosystem to dust events based on 

observations and incubation experiments. 

The possible relationship between Asian dust 

and primary productivity/blooms in the coastal 

seas of China were examined during 

1998-2008. 

The other talks addressed a few scientific 

questions related to iron cycle in the North 

Pacific Ocean. 1) Fe to the iron cycle (II) 

Oxidation Rates by Organic Complexing 

Ligands, 2) mechanisms controlling dissolved 

iron distribution, 3) advection of deep-sea 

and coastal water into the HNLC region, 

4) impact of Asian dust on plankton and 

DMS production, 5) oceanic iron supply 

mechanisms supporting the spring diatom 

bloom, 6) the role of zooplankton in buffering 

geographical heterogeneity of primary 

productivity, 7) the impacts of mesoscale 

eddies on iron cycle and biogeochemical 

processes, 8) reviews of the influence of 

ocean fertilization on marine biodiversity. 

Emilie Brévière from the SOLAS International 

Project Office also gave an overview on the 

SOLAS project and its Mid-Term Strategy. 



A workshop associated with the IGBP 

Fast Track Initiative (FTI) on “Upper 

Ocean Nutrient Limitation: Processes, 

Patterns and Potential for change” 

3-5 November 2010, Southampton, UK 

Mark Moore 

(c.moore@noc.soton.ac.uk) 

National Oceanography Centre, 

Southampton, UK 

Over the past 2 decades a number of 

significant advances have furthered our 

understanding of the processes responsible 

for patterns of microbial nutrient limitation 

in the upper ocean and subsequent 

consequences for marine biogeochemistry. 

Moreover, given past changes and the 

potential for significant perturbation of 

limiting nutrient inputs to the ocean over 

the remainder of the century, it was felt 

to be an opportune moment for the 

community to attempt a clarification of 

the current state of knowledge. 

The workshop was attended by 19 

participants from 10 countries and four 

Joint 5th workshop on Asian Dust and Ocean Ecosystem (ADOES) with Asian 

SOLAS / WESTPAC 1 / METMOP 2 / SALSA 3 

29 November – 2 December 2010, Nakasaki, Japan 

William Miller (bmiller@uga.edu) 

Department of Marine Sciences, 

University of Georgia, USA 

Professors Mitsuo Uematsu (Japan), Gang Yi 

Shi (China), and SoonChang Yoon (Korea) 

began the workshop by first welcoming the 

33 participants from Japan, China, Korea, 

and the United States, and then outlining 

the workshop objectives for the group. 

The workshop goals were to improve 

the scientific understanding of the 

processes controlling the origin, transport, 

physicochemical nature and effect of 

Asian dust on ocean biogeochemistry. 

Additionally, the meeting was intended 

to enhance regional cooperation among 

the ADOES group and with other similar 

SOLAS initiatives around the world. 

The first goal was accomplished with the 

presentation of 21 science talks over two 

days. These were delivered by both senior 

researchers and students and presented 

a comprehensive coverage of essential 

continents. A wide range of different 

disciplines were represented from 

microbiologists to paleo-oceanographers, 

reflecting the theme of the FTI cross-cutting 

IGBP projects including SOLAS, IMBER, AIMES 

and PAGES. Given the topics to be covered, 

a number of pre-workshop reports were 

prepared, with material on these presented 

during the first day of the workshop. 

Subsequent discussions were focused towards 

synthesising this material alongside additional 

novel insights coming from the group. The 

participants continued to focus on four broad 

themes: 1) the concepts and definitions of 

nutrient limitation, 2) patterns of limitation in 

the modern ocean, including the development 

of a new database of prior published results, 

3) expected changes in the future and finally 

4) the potential implications of such changes. 

problems facing ADOES and other 

studies of ocean-dust interactions. 

Enhancing collaboration and coordination of 

work within ADOES and with other dust studies 

was discussed in an afternoon session on the 

second day to end the formal workshop. This 

included a brief overview by Professor William 

Miller about the SOLAS Mid-Term Strategy and 

the role of ADOES as a leader and model for 

excellent regional scientific collaborations in 

promoting these plans. 

Professor Huiwang Gao presented a 

concise overview of initiatives that ADOES 

could pursue in the coming year including 

the ability for samples to be collected for 

distribution on upcoming Chinese cruises. 

Further discussion identified, as a minimum, 

the following action items: 

1) Invite someone from the Australian Dust 

group to the ADOES/WESTPAC workshop to 

be held is Busan, S. Korea, 28-31 March, 

2011 (20 December abstract deadline). 

1 IOC/WESTPAC (IOC Sub-Commission for the Western Pacific), 2 METMOP (Marine Ecosystem Transit 

from Marginal seas to Open Pacific), 3 SALSA (Development of Seamless Chemical AssimiLation System and 

its Application for Atmospheric Environmental Materials) 

Contributing to the SOLAS Mid- 

Term Strategy theme Atmospheric 

control of nutrient cycling and 

production in the surface ocean 

Co-ordinator Cécile Giueu 

(guieu@obs-vlfr.fr) 

Overall the range and level of expertise 

facilitated a dynamic environment for 

stimulating and productive cross disciplinary 

discussions, which will hopefully be reflected 

in the quality of the outputs. The group are 

currently working towards the first of these, 

the submission of a major review to a high 

profile journal within the first half of 2011. 

Further details on the FTI and the 

workshop are available at http://ocean. 

stanford.edu/IGBP_FTI/. All attendees are 

thanked for their participation alongside 

IGBP, the US Ocean Biogeochemistry 

Programme, EU-COST 735 and SCOR for the 

funding which made the meeting possible. 

2) Determine the feasibility and possible 

availability of a “Dust Standard” to be 

used by the ADOES group and international 

dust community. The National Institute of 

Environmental Studies (Tsukuba, Japan) is 

now trying to sample the dust in Mongolia. 

3) Continue the intercomparison of analytical 

results currently underway on seawater and 

aerosol filter samples collected during the 

R/V Hakuho Maru cruise (KH-10-1) between 

the Japanese and Chinese groups. 

It is clear from the successful 5th ADOES 

workshop activities in Nagasaki that the 

ADOES group is making good progress in 

addressing the important scientific 

questions related to the interactions 

between Asian dust and ocean ecosystems. 



Air-sea gas fluxes at Eastern Boundary 

Upwelling and Oxygen Minimum Zones 

(OMZs) systems. A SOLAS Mid-Term 

Strategy initiative. 

8-10 November 2010, Lima, Perú 

co-sponsored by SOLAS 

Michelle Graco (mgraco@imarpe.pe) 

Instituto del Mar del Perú (IMARPE), 

Peru and Aurélien Paulmier 

(aurelien.paulmier@legos.obs-mip.fr) 

IRD/LEGOS, LMI DISCOH, Peru 

This meeting had its genesis in May 2008 

(4th IGBP Congress, Cape Town) during 

the SOLAS Scientific Steering Committee 

meeting where the future of SOLAS 

research activities were discussed. A 

“white paper” was proposed concerning 

the “Activity of the Minimum of Oxygen 

(OMZ) in the Pacific” (A. Paulmier and V. 

Garçon, 2008). In November 2009, during 

the SOLAS Open Science Conference in 

Barcelona, Air-sea interactions in Eastern 

Boundary Upwelling Ecosystems (EBUEs) 

and OMZs were considered important topics 

and now form one of the SOLAS Mid-Term 

Strategy Initiatives (SOLAS Newsletter Issue 

11). The idea of holding a workshop in 

Lima (Peru) at IMARPE was proposed in 

March 2010. Since then, IMARPE has 

been involved in the meeting coordination, 

together with the SOLAS International 

Project Office. The meeting held on 8-10 

November 2010 was attended by more 

than 70 scientists from Brazil, Chile, China, 

France, Germany, Ireland, Mexico, Peru, UK, 

USA, and Switzerland (See Photo below). 

During the first day and part of the second 

morning of the meeting, the talks provided 

an overview associated with the different 

foci of SOLAS: exchange processes across 

the air-sea interface and processes in the 

oceanic boundary layer (Focus 2); long-lived 

radioactively active gases (Focus 3); and 

biogeochemical interactions between ocean 

and atmosphere (Focus 1). 

All the presentations covered state of the 

art new results and national programs and 

perspectives in the broad thematic spectrum 

associated with EBUEs and OMZs, including 

present and past studies in the area, 

particularly in the eastern boundary of 

the Pacific Ocean. 

After the talk sessions, the participants 

split into three working groups (WG): 

WG1: Air-sea exchange of Climate-relevant, 

Reactive and Active trace Gases (CRAGS); 

WG2: OMZs-EBUEs “engine” of the 

present and past biogeochemical activity 

at the oxycline and the core (organic matter 

(OM) production, export and degradation; 

micro- and macro-community structures; 

isotopic fractionation), producing and/or 

consuming CRAGs; 

WG3: Physical control of large-scale and 

regional circulation and variability for the 

OMZs-EBUEs. 

During the working group sessions, each 

group identified key questions and discussed 

the strategy and common international 

plans. The main scientific questions were: 

1) What is the role on the atmosphere 

of CRAGs upwelling at local, regional 

and global scales (e.g. redox state of the 

upwelled water; pH influence; nature of 

the air-sea interface; photochemistry; 

stratification, turbulence and mixing)? 

Contributing to the SOLAS Mid-Term 

Strategy theme Air-sea gas fluxes at 

Eastern Boundary Upwelling and 

Oxygen Minimum Zone (OMZ) systems 

Co-ordinator Véronique Garçon 

(veronique.garcon@legos.obs-mip.fr) 

2) What is the relative contribution of 

physics (e.g. circulation, winds, eddies, 

waves) and biogeochemistry (sensitivity 

to: O2; OM nature and stoichiometry; pH; 

Fe and other metals) on OMZ control? 

3) What is the role of the OMZ on the 

highly O2-sensitive nitrogen cycle (loss 

and gain through N2 fixation, nitrification, 

anammox, denitrification and nitrogen 

assimilation) coupled with the phosphorus 

and carbon cycles? 

4) What are the future scenarios in the 

context of the interannual trends and 

global change considering all the involved 

feedbacks on climate? 

We will focus on process oriented studies 

and on coordination and optimisation of all 

research cruises to be held from 2011 until 

2013 in the Eastern Boundary Pacific Ocean, 

particularly off Perú. These cruises will be 

based on fixed-stations, section series and 

in shore/off shore cruises, carried out by 

IMARPE on a seasonal basis and by other 

countries which will include intensive 

autonomous monitoring (moorings, gliders, 

floats). The subsequent strategy will be a 

joint initiative of a multinational (e.g. Chile, 

China, France, Germany, Mexico, Peru, 

UK, USA…), multi-disciplinary and multiprogram 

Mega Experiment at sea along with 

science flights for 2014-2015. In continuous 

interaction with planned observations, three 

working groups for modelling will be 

formed in order to optimise field strategy 

(e.g. choice of the fixed stations and of 

glider/floats deployment) and to test simple 

hypotheses (1: process models (e.g. role of 

remineralisation depth in 1D setting); 

2: regional coupled models (physics, 

biogeochemistry); 3: high resolution 

atmospheric modelling). 

Finally, during this workshop, 

SOLAS-Peru was born and now forms 

part of the international SOLAS network. 

Michelle Graco (IMARPE, Peru) will be 

the National Representative. 

More details about the SOLAS OMZs-EBUEs 

Mid-Term Strategy Initiative can be found 

at: http://www.solasint.org/aboutsolas/organisationaandstructur 

e/midtermstrategy/omzmeeting.html 



2010 GEOTRACES Asia Planning workshop 

4-6 October 2010, Taipei, Taiwan 

Tung-Yuan Ho 

(tyho@gate.sinica.edu.tw) 

Research Center for Environmental 

Changes, Academia Sinica, Taipei, 

Taiwan and Robert F. Anderson 

(boba@ldeo.columbia.edu) 

Lamont-Doherty Earth 

Observatory, Columbia University, 

New York, USA 

East and South Asia, the most populous 

regions on Earth, face the Western Pacific 

Ocean, the Indian Ocean and their marginal 

seas. Diverse anthropogenic and natural 

forcings coexist and interact in the 

biogeochemical cycling of trace elements 

and isotopes (TEIs) in these waters. However, 

their key regulating processes still remain 

largely to be explored. The major objectives 

of the 2010 GEOTRACES Asia Planning 

workshop were first to identify the key 

processes that regulate the biogeochemical 

cycles of TEIs in the waters and then to 

generate a future action plan for TEIs 

research. The participants included 25 Asian 

scientists from China, India, Japan, Korea, 

and Taiwan, 10 American and 

European scientists, and about 30 local 

graduate students. Detailed workshop 

information is available at: http:// 

proj3.sinica.edu.tw/~geotrace/index.htm. 

Following plenary talks presented in the 

first two days, three breakout groups were 

formed for further topical discussion, 

including water column, sinking particles, 

and submarine groundwater discharge 

(SGD) groups. The suggestions proposed by 

the groups were further discussed in the final 

plenary session. Some of the major 

conclusions achieved are highlighted here. 

First, capacity building is essential for most 

Asian countries prior to initiating a complete 

GEOTRACES program. Currently, only Japan 

and Taiwan own clean sampling facilities and 

only Japan is capable of doing shipboard 

analysis for contamination prone trace 

metals. It is thus important to select 

crossover stations at deep-water sites to 

maintain an intercalibration effort for the key 

TEIs as Asian countries develop their capacity 

for TEIs analysis. The SGD group 

recommended selecting SGD sampling sites 

in the waters along Chinese coasts where 

the population is huge to evaluate the 

relative importance of SGD for nutrient and 

trace metal inputs in comparison to riverine 

and aeolian sources. The sinking particle 

group emphasised that the East Asia oceanic 

waters are regions with exceptionally high 

external particle inputs from both 

atmospheric and riverine sources and also 

with high gradients of external inputs over 

the broad continental shelves. Evaluating 

the fate of aerosol deposition is a high 

priority for TEIs study in the regions. Some 

of the research topics proposed during the 

workshop match closely with the core study 

of SOLAS and provide opportunities for 

future collaboration. 

Overall, the workshop was successful and 

productive, largely due to the open-handed 

suggestions and insights provided by the 

American and European scientists. At the 

end, a future cruise plan was proposed by 

the Asian representatives (Figure 1). 

Figure 1 : Ongoing and proposed Asian GEOTRACES cruises shown on the map of Google Earth. The red line cruises are or will be carried out by Japan; 

the white lines by China, the pink lines by Taiwan; the green lines by India. The yellow pins labeled as ‘ST30’ and ‘Hong Kong’ stand for SGD stations. 

The ‘SEATS’ site would be a crossover deep-water station. The numbers next to the lines stand for the possible years to carry out the cruises. 



2010 GEOTRACES Mediterranean Planning workshop 

6-8 October 2010, Nice, France 

Cécile Guieu 

(guieu@obs-vlfr.fr) Laboratoire 

d'Océanographie de Villefranche 

sur Mer (CNRS), France 

Since the inception of the international 

GEOTRACES Programme, a strong 

interest has developed in carrying out 

GEOTRACES-related activities on trace 

elements and their isotopes (TEI) in the 

Mediterranean Sea, due to the proximity 

and importance of the ocean-landatmosphere 

domains, as well as the variety 

and intensity of exchanges between these 

domains. A funding opportunity from 

COST Action ES0801 culminated in a 

GEOTRACES Mediterranean Planning 

workshop. More than 50 participants 

from 15 countries met and discussed 

various aspects of implementing 

GEOTRACES in the Mediterranean. 

On day 1, keynote speeches demonstrated 

the large variety of themes that could be 

handled under the umbrella of GEOTRACES 

in the Mediterranean Sea. Among other 

things, the SOLAS-GEOTRACES cooperation 

in the Mediterranean was enhanced. 

Advocacy speeches focused on key 

parameters, tracers, processes and sites of 

interest for Mediterranean GEOTRACES. 

Several parallel break-out sessions took 

place on day 2 with the goal of defining 

key questions and addressing how a 

GEOTRACES section in the Mediterranean 

Sea (and Black Sea) could bring new 

insights regarding TEI fluxes and processes 

at ocean interfaces, particle cycles, 

Western and Eastern Mediterranean 

process study/studies TEI as proxies for 

past change and TEI and models. The ideal 

Mediterranean GEOTRACES section(s) 

were discussed: (1) one central (W-E) 







section by the R/V Pelagia (Netherlands) 

will likely occur in 2013 and (2) other 

sections dedicated to focused process 

studies in key area such as the Gulf of 

Lions, Adratic Sea, Black Sea, off the 

Egypt/Israel coasts etc will have to be 

organised concomitantly with the central 

section, with other research vessels. 

Complementary to the work during 

GEOTRACES sections, processes studies 

at key sites (such as time series coupling 

atmospheric deposition and sediment 

traps) were also discussed and will be 

considered in the implementation. 

Deliberations from the GEOTRACES 

Mediterranean Planning workshop will 

be recorded in a workshop report which 

is currently being drafted. 

Web site of the workshop: 

www.cybaes.org/gtmed/GMPW/index.html 



Atmospheric versus land based 

controls of nutrient cycling and 

production in the surface ocean: 

from fieldwork to modeling 

8-9 December 2010, Istanbul, Turkey 

Cécile Guieu (guieu@obs-vlfr.fr) 

Laboratoire d'Océanographie de 

Villefranche sur Mer (CNRS), France 

The objectives of the meeting were to 

better assess the links between atmospheric 

deposition, ocean productivity, nutrient 

cycling and carbon export and to debate on 

the integration of atmospheric forcing into 

biogeochemical models. 33 scientists from 

13 countries with internationally recognised 

expertise in modeling, field work and/or 

experimental approaches critically examined 

and discussed the following topics: 

1. Atmospheric deposition, ocean 

productivity and nutrient cycling: 

what have we learnt from field and 

experimental approaches and how 

can we go further? 

2. Atmospheric vs land based inputs: 

how to consider expected changes? 

3. Integration of atmospheric forcing into 

biogeochemical models: state of the art 

and current limits. 

4. Hierarchisation of key processes to be 

considered, parameterisation that can be 

handled by models, type of models, time 

and space scale: what should be done to 

better represent present and future 

carbon budget/cycle? 

Day one was devoted to topical sessions 

focusing on each of the issues above. 

Synthesis presentations were given by session 

chairs, based on material collected from 

attendants before the meeting, allowing 

maximum time for constructive discussions. 

On day 2, reports from each of the 4 

sessions allowed us to highlight the main 

issues concerning existing and missing 

knowledge of our present understanding 

on the impacts of atmospheric deposition 

on marine biogeochemical cycles and 

ecosystems. Discussions on how improved 

technologies, tools and new approaches 

could help in resolving some of the 

questions raised were very fruitful. 

There were several outputs from the 

meeting. A review paper will aim to 

synthesise our knowledge in the 

global ocean, with a focus on the 

Low Nutrient Low Chlorophyll ocean 

where the atmospheric deposition is 

mainly occurring at present time. 

Considering that several experts from 

the Mediterranean and Black Sea were 

particularly interested in the atmospheric 







versus land based inputs in these regions 

subjected to high atmospheric inputs, a 

second paper on this topic is in discussion. 

Finally, the whole group was motivated to 

form a consortium that could propose 

innovative research in the frame of a large 

project. Considering that there is a strong 

need for further multidisciplinary research 

on this topic, several options were proposed 

by the experts. A consortium to focus on 

European Seas with special focus on the 

Mediterranean and the Black Sea could 

be formed or a comparative study with 

non-European Seas could be proposed. 

The group decided to form an e-mail 

group to continue the discussion. 

COST Action 735 (http://www.cost- 

735.org/) funded this 2 day workshop 

organised by Cécile Guieu (France) and 

Bariş Salihoğlu (Turkey). The meeting 

greatly complimented the SOLAS Mid-Term 

Strategy initiative “Atmospheric control of 

nutrient cycling and production in the 

surface ocean.” 


SOLAS Data Integration 

New Project Integrator joins SOLAS 

Photo : New Project Integrator Shital Rohekar 

The last few months have seen a lot of changes for SOLAS data 

integration. We bid a fond farewell to Tom Bell, in December, 

wishing him the best of luck in his new role at the University of 

California, Irvine and thanking him for his enthusiasm and dedication 

to SOLAS over the past 3 years. 

Although Tom will continue to be involved in the project the mantle 

of SOLAS Project Integrator has passed to Shital Rohekar who we 

welcomed in November. Shital is based at the University of East 

Anglia, UK, and has already been busy getting to know members of 

the SOLAS community. 

Ever wondered what data has been collected by other members 

of the SOLAS community? 

Ever known that data exists from a region but can’t remember 

who collected it and when? 

Then try the SOLAS Metadata portal! http://tinyurl.com/46xnf9 

The SOLAS Metadata Portal is an ongoing effort, initiated 

through SOLAS Integration (with the help of the SOLAS IPO), 

to identify what SOLAS data exists and where it is archived. 

Before joining SOLAS, Shital completed her Ph.D at the University of 

Cambridge, UK. Her research focussed on quantifying sulphur emissions 

from anthropogenic sources (e.g. research stations, ships, vehicles etc.) 

in Antarctica and developing emission inventories for the same. She has 

also worked on assessing the role of meteorology in transport and 

deposition of sulphur species within the Antarctic troposphere. 

As a Project Integrator, Shital will work towards achieving SOLAS’s 

key objectives of assembling datasets, largely in terms of quantitative 

estimates of air-sea fluxes of gases and particles. 

Initially, Shital will work with the aerosol community and focus 

on assembling the available aerosol/rain data. Some aerosol/rain 

data has already been submitted to define British Oceanographic 

Data Centre (BODC), Shital’s intention is to compile all the available 

data into a single database and link to this database through the 

SOLAS Integration website (http://www.bodc.ac.uk/solas_integration/). 

This could be of great importance to people who wish to compare 

their individual datasets or use it as input fields in their models. 

If you wish to contribute aerosol/rain data or any other chemical species 

data towards SOLAS Implementation working groups I, II and III 

(http://www.bodc.ac.uk/solas_integration/implementation_products/) 

Shital would be very happy to hear from you. All contributors will be 

fully acknowledged for their contribution to global flux products. 

Contact : S.Rohekar@uea.ac.uk 

SOLAS Metadata Portal – A resource available to the community 

Metadata is, simply speaking, information about data. In the 

context of the SOLAS Portal, Metadata refers to information 

(or links to other sources of information) about a dataset 

(often collected throughout a research cruise or aircraft 

campaign). Much of the recent worldwide SOLAS Metadata 

has been assembled and archived into an inventory run 

by NASA (the Global Change Master Directory, GCMD). 

This resource is freely-available to the entire community 

and enables the user to identify relevant datasets that 

include information about the actual data’s location, when 

it was collected and the name of the data-provider. A wide 

range of compound and particle types are covered, making 

this useful to a wide range of SOLAS research, enabling 

increased collaboration and adding value to past and 

present scientific endeavour. 

In its current state, the SOLAS Metadata 

Portal is an invaluable resource, in 

particular for communities that wish to 

generate a compilation of all relevant 

historical measurements at a global 

scale. However, if you have information 

that could be included, it’s a very quick 

job to contribute. Please contact Shital 

Rohekar (s.rohekar@uea.ac.uk) or use 

the template form which can be found 

at http://tinyurl.com/328zjr5. 



COST Action 735 Management Committee Meeting 

10 December 2010, Istanbul Turkey 

The 7th Management Committee (MC) meeting took place following the Working Group (WG) meeting “Atmospheric versus land based 

controls of nutrient cycling and production in the surface ocean: from fieldwork to modelling” (see report page 32) which many MC 

members also attended. The committee reviewed the progress of the Action over the last 6 months which included 4 WG meetings and 2 

Short Term Scientific Missions (STSMs) currently in progress. 

As the Action is drawing to a close the committee considered the achievements of the Action so far, including the outcomes and progress 

of WG meetings, the number of early stage researchers engaged through STSM’s and attendance at WG meetings and the publications 

resulting from the Action. The committee discussed ideas for both a final action event and a publication to pull together the achievements 

of the Action so far. 

The meeting was attended by the Actions Science Officer, Stefan Stueckrad, who updated the MC on newly established COST Actions and 

news from the Earth System Science and Environmental Management domain. 

The committee approved the budget until the end of the Action including funding 2 further STSM’s and committing funds for publications 

resulting for the Action activities. The final MC meeting will take place in late 2011 (dates to be announced). For more information on COST 

Action 735 activities please visit www.cost-735.org 

Forthcoming WG meetings and STSM’s are listed below. 

Meetings 

Sub-WG 2&3 meeting 

'What is the sea surface microlayer? Towards a unified physical, 

chemical and biological definition of the air-ocean interface' 

Proposer: Michael Cunliffe 

Date: 25-26 January 2011 

Location: Plymouth, UK 

STSMs 

Jakub Kowalczyk 

Institytut Oceanologii PAN (IOPAS), Sopot, Poland 

Topic: Implementation of novel methods of particle 

flux measurements 

Host: Lise-Lotte Sorensen, Aarhus Universitet, Roskilde, Denmark 

Frances Hopkins 

Plymouth Marine Laboratory, UK 

Topic: Work on novel techniques for measuring DMS and 

organo-halogens 

Host: Jacqueline Stefels, University of Groningen, The Netherlands 

Sub-WG 1&3 meeting 

'Sea-ice biogeochemistry and interactions with the atmosphere' 

Proposer: Jacqueline Stefels 

Date: 12-14 April 2011 

Location: Amsterdam, Netherlands 

Ru-Jin Huang 

National University of Ireland Galway, Ireland 

Topic: Reaction Cycling of Particulate Iodine in the Marine 

Boundary Layer-A Chamber Study 

Host: Thorsten Hoffman, University of Mainz, Germany 

Petri Vaattovaara 

University of Eastern Finland, Finland 

Topic: The role of organics in SOAP (Southern Ocean 

Aerosol Processes) 

Host: Michael Harvey, National Institute of Water & Atmospheric 

Research, New Zealand 

Call for integrative sessions now open 

Submission deadline 18 March 2011. See http://www.planetunderpressure2012.net/ for more information. 

If you have an idea for a session contact the SOLAS IPO at solas@uea.ac.uk. We will be happy to work with you to develop your proposal. 



Reports of recent COST Action 735 meetings 

Sub-WG 1 meeting - Trace metal 

speciation data in COST Actions 

735 and 801: Current state of the 

art and towards the construction 

of a database 

Meeting convened by Peter Croot (pecr@pml.ac.uk) 

16-17 August 2010, Kiel, Germany 

The organisation of this meeting was undertaken as part of the 

activities of WG I (Short-lived trace gas production and biological 

feedbacks) in Cost Action 735 and WG’s 2 (Intercalibration) and 3 

(Data Management) in Cost Action 801. To represent a wide range 

of different disciplines and approaches to this topic, researchers 

actively working on trace element speciation, including a number 

of early career scientists, attended the meeting. 

The aim of the meeting was to discuss the current state of the field 

with respect to measurements of trace metal speciation, identify the 

current groups working in this field and the current and potential 

users of this data. The main goal of the meeting was to bring workers 

in this field together and to develop a common criterion for data 

analysis and quality control for use in submitting data to a common 

database. For this purpose we also invited experts in oceanographic 

data management to help facilitate this interchange of information. 

The meeting agenda was constructed around 3 invited talks that 

outlined the current state of the art and a series of sessions, 

discussions and information exchange devoted to key aspects 

related to constructing a centralised database. 

A main outcome of the workshop was the establishment of a Wiki 

for the exchange of information on trace metal speciation, theory 

and techniques. This Wiki is already functioning (https://portal.ifmgeomar.de/web/tmsis/wiki) 

and is being constantly updated. The wiki 

will form the initial repository for historical speciation data currently 

not available in online databases and include some more functions 

(e.g. templates, bibliographies). People interesting in participating in 

the wiki should contact Peter Croot at pecr@pml.ac.uk. 

A proposal for a research school for trace metal speciation will be 

explored to complement existing plans within GEOTRACES for 

shipboard intercalibrations for trace metal speciation. 

An article summarising the results of this meeting will be submitted 

to EOS shortly (http://www.agu.org/pubs/eos-news/) 

For further information on COST Action 801 visit 

http://costaction.earth.ox.ac.uk/ 

Full Meeting reports can be accessed at 

http://www.cost-735.org/meetings/meetings.html 

Sub-WG 3 meeting - Experimental, 

typological and modelling approaches 

to evaluate at global and regional 

scales horizontal and vertical fluxes 

from land to the open ocean through 

rivers, estuaries and the coastal ocean 

Meeting convened by Alberto Borges (alberto.borges@ulg.ac.be) 

4-5 October 2010, Liège, Belgium 

The aim of this workshop was to bring together a community of 

scientists working with different approaches ranging from field 

measurements to modelling, on fluxes from land to the ocean 

including vertical exchanges with the atmosphere. The major 

outcome expected from this workshop was to create synergies 

among this community to better constrain and evaluate 

transformation of matter and energy along the land-river-estuaryocean 

continuum. Topics covered by the workshop were: 

• Estimates of fluxes of major biogeochemical elements from land 

through rivers and estuaries to the ocean based on typological 

approaches to derive regional and global estimates. 

• Modelling with different degrees of complexity and scaling of 

transformations of major biogeochemical elements during riverine 

and estuarine transit and in the coastal zone. 

• Scaling of vertical fluxes (atmospheric exchange) of GHGs and 

other climatically active gases in riverine, estuarine and coastal 

oceanic environments. 

At the end of the meeting stimulating discussions arose about the 

feasibility of 

• Coupling the RIVERSTRAHLER model with a simplified forcing field 

with the GLOBAL NEWS to provide more robust estimates of fluxes 

from rivers, at European and possibly global scales. 

• Using the estuarine typology of U Utrecht to scale estuarine 

N2O and CH4 fluxes using MEMENTO and other data-bases. 

• Using COSCAT continental shelf typology of University of Utrecht 

to scale DMS emissions from continental shelves. 

It was noted that a mangrove GIS data-base has recently been 

developed and could be used to upgrade the University of Utrecht 

estuarine typology, to include inter-tidal areas. 

Some participants expressed willingness to contribute CH4 and N2O 

data-sets to MEMENTO and to contribute carbon data-sets to GloRiCh 

in particular in the tropics. This will be highly valuable to calibrate/adjust 

the GLOBAL NEWS DIC model outputs and will also contribute to ongoing 

synthesis efforts on riverine fluxes in the RECCAP initiative. 

All participants agreed that further interaction between WG3 with 

WG2 is needed to decide on best gas transfer velocity parameterisation, 

wind speed products and gridded gas transfer velocity to compute the 

CH4 and N2O fluxes based on the data compiled in MEMENTO. 

We would like to thank Land-Ocean Interactions 

in the Coastal Zone (LOICZ) http://www.loicz.org/ 

for co-funding this meeting. 


Ocean fertilization: from science to policy 

Iron addition experiments in the 1990s helped develop the 

scientific rational for SOLAS, stimulating the programme’s major 

interest in the natural atmospheric controls of ocean productivity. 

Those studies also stimulated wider public and policy interest in 

whether ocean fertilization might help solve the climate change 

problem, as a relatively natural form of geoengineering. A policydirected 

assessment of 

the viability of such an 

approach has now 

been published 

(Wallace et al, 2010; 

online via http:// 

unesdoc.unesco.org/ 

images/ 0019/001906/ 

190674E.pdf), as a 

joint initiative 

between SOLAS 

and UNESCO’s 

Intergovernmental 

Oceanographic 

Commission. 

SOLAS sponsors 

The printing of this newsletter is supported by: the State Key Laboratory of Marine 

Environmental Science, Xiamen University and China-SOLAS Program 

If you would like to receive a hard copy of the 

SOLAS newsletter, please email solas@uea.ac.uk 

Design by: Woolf Designs, www.woolfdesigns.co.uk +44 (0) 1603 861669 

Edited by: Emilie Brévière and Kath Mortimer 

Anyone looking for 

an endorsement of 

early claims that a 

tanker full of iron 

could start the 

next ice age will be disappointed by this review. Best estimates of 

enhanced global carbon storage achievable by deliberate ocean 

fertilization over the next hundred years are now 25-75 Gt, an 

order of magnitude lower than estimates from the early 1990s – 

and two orders of magnitude less than cumulative carbon 

emissions under unconstrained scenarios. 

Whilst the possibility remains that ocean fertilization might be 

adopted as one of many ways of achieving climate stabilisation, 

this option is not risk-free. And the cost of showing that it is 

working (and not causing unintended consequences) could be 

high. There are also critical questions regarding the international 

acceptability and governance of any geoengineering approach 

that might involve adverse environmental consequences, as shown 

by recent discussions by the Convention on Biological Diversity. 

The International Geosphere Biosphere Programme is now 

engaged in these issues, through a workshop on ecosystem 

impacts of geoengineering, with SOLAS involvement. (San Diego, 

31 January – 2 February 2011). 

Reference 

Wallace, D.W.R., Law, C.S., Boyd, P.W., Collos, Y., Croot, P., 

Denman, K., Lam, P.J., Riebesell, U., Takeda, S., & Williamson, P. 

(2010) Ocean Fertilization. A Scientific Summary for Policy 

Makers. IOC/UNESCO, Paris (IOC/BRO/2010/2). 17 pp 

To request a print copy please email solas@uea.ac.uk 

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