Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research

Last updated
Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research
AbbreviationSCOR
Formation1957;66 years ago (1957)
Type INGO
Region served
Worldwide
Official language
English
Parent organization
International Science Council
Website scor-int.org

The Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR) is an interdisciplinary body of the International Science Council. [1] SCOR was established in 1957, coincident with the International Geophysical Year of 1957-1958. It sought to bring scientists together to answer key ocean science questions and improve opportunities for marginalised scientists. [2]

From 1959 through to 1988 SCOR organised a sequence of Joint Oceanographic Assemblies. Following these, SCOR has focused its efforts on targeted scientific working groups. These small international groups are designed to address narrowly focused scientific topics based on proposals from independent groups of scientists, national committees for SCOR, other scientific organizations, or previous working groups. [3] The working groups last typically for three to four years. SCOR activity, often through the efforts of working groups, has helped support the development of many large-scale ocean research projects.

SCOR-associated programs

IIOE
International Indian Ocean Expedition (IIOE) resulted from the first annual SCOR meeting, held at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in 1957. The meeting identified the Indian Ocean as the least known component in the global ocean system and so that a campaign of focused observations would be of great benefit. The initiative commenced in 1959 and observational work carried on until 1965. [4]
TOGA
the Tropical Ocean-Global Atmosphere Study (TOGA) was coordinated by the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) and made great observation-based advances in understanding of El Niño and improved skills in predicting the occurrence of El Niño events. [5]
WOCE
The World Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE) ran from 1990-2002 and aimed to gather more ocean observations in a way that enabled improved modelling tools.
GEOTRACES
The GEOTRACES programme was solely sponsored by SCOR and continues to advance knowledge of the oceanic contribution to global biogeochemical cycles of trace elements and their isotopes. [6]
JGOFS
The Joint Global Ocean Flux Study focused on the role of the ocean in the global carbon cycle and completed its work in 2003. JGOFS was co-sponsored by SCOR and the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP).
GLOBEC
The Global Ocean Ecosystem Dynamics project, completed in 2009, focused on the relationship between physical and biological variability in the ocean and how global change might impact the structure and functioning of marine ecosystems, with particular emphasis on important fisheries. GLOBEC was co-sponsored by SCOR, IGBP, and IOC.
IMBER
SCOR and IGBP developed the Integrated Marine Biogeochemistry and Ecosystem Research (IMBER) project that promotes integrated marine research through a range of research topics towards sustainable, productive and healthy oceans at a time of global change, for the benefit of society.
SOLAS
Surface Ocean – Lower Atmosphere Study (SOLAS) is sponsored by SCOR, IGBP, the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) and the Commission on Atmospheric Chemistry and Global Pollution (CACGP). It is global and multidisciplinary in its approach to understanding the key biogeochemical-physical interactions and feedbacks between the ocean and the atmosphere. [7] Additionally, SOLAS seeks to link ocean-atmosphere interactions with climate and people.
GEOHAB
Global Ecology and Oceanography of Harmful Algal Blooms project examines the ecological and oceanographic conditions that cause harmful algal blooms and promote their development. It is supported by SCOR and IOC.
IQOE
International Quiet Ocean Experiment (co-sponsored by the Partnership for Observation of the Global Oceans) and designed to examine questions around human activities affecting the global ocean soundscape compared with natural changes over geologic time.
IIOE-2
Second International Indian Ocean Expedition (co-sponsored by IOC and the Indian Ocean GOOS program) was a major global scientific program which will engage the international scientific community in collaborative oceanographic and atmospheric research from coastal environments to the deep sea over the period 2015-2020.
SOOS
The Southern Ocean Observing System (SOOS) facilitated by both SCOR and the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research, supports observations, the associated science community and data access, with a focus on the Southern Ocean. [8]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">World Climate Research Programme</span> Climatological research organization

The World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) is an international programme that helps to coordinate global climate research. The WCRP was established in 1980, under the joint sponsorship of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the International Council for Science (ICSU), and has also been sponsored by the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO since 1993.

The Tropical Ocean Global Atmosphere program (TOGA) was a ten-year study (1985-1994) of the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) aimed specifically at the prediction of climate phenomena on time scales of months to years.

CLIVAR is a component of the World Climate Research Programme. Its purpose is to describe and understand climate variability and predictability on seasonal to centennial time-scales, identify the physical processes responsible for climate change and develop modeling and predictive capabilities for climate modelling.

The World Ocean Database Project, or WOD, is a project established by the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC). The project leader is Sydney Levitus who is director of the International Council for Science (ICSU) World Data Center (WDC) for Oceanography, Silver Spring. In recognition of the success of the IOC Global Oceanographic Data Archaeological and Rescue Project, a proposal was presented at the 16th Session of the Committee on International Oceanographic Data and Information Exchange (IODE), which was held in Lisbon, Portugal, in October–November 2000, to establish the World Ocean Database Project. This project is intended to stimulate international exchange of modern oceanographic data and encourage the development of regional oceanographic databases as well as the implementation of regional quality control procedures. This new Project was endorsed by the IODE at the conclusion of the Portugal meeting, and the IOC subsequently approved this project in June 2001.

The Surface Ocean Lower Atmosphere Study (SOLAS) is a global and multidisciplinary research project dedicated to understanding the key biogeochemical-physical interactions and feedbacks between the ocean and the atmosphere. Further, SOLAS seeks to link ocean-atmosphere interactions with climate and people. Achievements of these goals are essential in order to understand and quantify the role that ocean-atmosphere interactions play in the regulation of climate and global change.

The Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) was established in 1992 as an outcome of the Second World Climate Conference, to ensure that the observations and information needed to address climate-related issues are obtained and made available to all potential users. The GCOS is co-sponsored by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and the International Council for Science (ICSU). In order to assess and monitor the adequacy of in-situ observation networks as well as satellite-based observing systems, GCOS regularly reports on the adequacy of the current climate observing system to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and thereby identifies the needs of the current climate observing system.

The World Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE) was a component of the international World Climate Research Program, and aimed to establish the role of the World Ocean in the Earth's climate system. WOCE's field phase ran between 1990 and 1998, and was followed by an analysis and modeling phase that ran until 2002. When the WOCE was conceived, there were three main motivations for its creation. The first of these is the inadequate coverage of the World Ocean, specifically in the Southern Hemisphere. Data was also much more sparse during the winter months than the summer months, and there was—and still to some extent—a critical need for data covering all seasons. Secondly, the data that did exist was not initially collected for studying ocean circulation and was not well suited for model comparison. Lastly, there were concerns involving the accuracy and reliability of some measurements. The WOCE was meant to address these problems by providing new data collected in ways designed to "meet the needs of global circulation models for climate prediction."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Global Ocean Ecosystem Dynamics</span> Global change effects on marine populations

Global Ocean Ecosystem Dynamics (GLOBEC) is the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) core project responsible for understanding how global change will affect the abundance, diversity and productivity of marine populations. The programme was initiated by SCOR and the IOC of UNESCO in 1991, to understand how global change will affect the abundance, diversity and productivity of marine populations comprising a major component of oceanic ecosystems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme</span> Research programme

The International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) was a research programme that ran from 1987 to 2015 dedicated to studying the phenomenon of global change. Its primary focus was coordinating "international research on global-scale and regional-scale interactions between Earth's biological, chemical and physical processes and their interactions with human systems."

GEOTRACES is an international research programme that aims to improve an understanding of biogeochemical cycles in the oceans.

IMBeR is a Future Earth-SCOR sponsored international project that promotes integrated marine research through a range of research topics towards sustainable, productive and healthy oceans at a time of global change, for the benefit of society.

The Partnership for Observation of the Global Ocean (POGO), which was founded in 1999, is a consortium of major oceanographic institutions around the world, represented by their Directors. POGO's goal is to promote global operational oceanography, the implementation of a Global Ocean Observing System, and the importance of ocean observations for society. In 2020, POGO had 51 Members. The current Chairman (2019-2022) is Prof. Nick Owens (Scottish Association for Marine Science, UK).

Syed Wajih Ahmad Naqvi is an Indian marine scientist and the former director of the National Institute of Oceanography. His work has concentrated in oceanic water chemistry, biogeochemistry, and chemical interrelations with living organisms. He has also performed research on freshwater ecosystems. He was the chief Indian scientist of LOHAFEX, an ocean iron fertilization experiment jointly planned by the Council of Scientific Industrial Research (CSIR), India, and Helmholtz Foundation, Germany.

The North Pacific Marine Science Organization, also called PICES, is an intergovernmental organization that promotes and coordinates marine scientific research in the North Pacific Ocean and provides a mechanism for information and data exchange among scientists in its member countries.

Future Earth is an international research program which aims to build knowledge about the environmental and human aspects of Global change, and to find solutions for sustainable development. It aims to increase the impact of scientific research on sustainable development.

Meinrat O. Andreae, born in 1949 in Augsburg, is a German biogeochemist. Since 1987, he has worked as Director and Scientific Member at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry (MPIC) in Mainz.

Gerold Siedler is a German physical oceanographer. He is professor emeritus at the Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel and at the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel.

Sunil Kumar Singh is a leading Indian geochemist, a former professor at the Physical Research Laboratory and currently the director of the National Institute of Oceanography, India. He is known for his studies on low temperature elemental and isotope geochemistry and his researches are reported to have assisted in widening the understanding of the evolution of the Himalayas. His studies have been documented in several peer-reviewed articles; Google Scholar, an online repository of scientific articles, has listed 99 of them respectively.

The Joint Global Ocean Flux Study (JGOFS) was an international research programme on the fluxes of carbon between the atmosphere and ocean, and within the ocean interior. Initiated by the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR), the programme ran from 1987 through to 2003, and became one of the early core projects of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP).

Zanna Chase is an ocean-going professor of chemical oceanography and paleoceanography at the Institute of Marine and Antarctic Science, University of Tasmania, Australia. She has undertaken over 20 voyages on research vessels, and her areas of expertise are Antartic paleoclimate, marine carbon cycle, radionuclides in the ocean, sediment geochemistry, paleoceanography, and marine biogeochemistry. In 2013 she was awarded with an ARC Future Fellowship.

References

  1. "Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR) – Addressing interdisciplinary science questions related to the ocean". scor-int.org.
  2. Wolff, T. 2010. The Birth and First Years of the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR), SCOR History Report #1.
  3. "Working Groups – Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR)". scor-int.org.
  4. Knauss, J.A., 1961. The International Indian Ocean Expedition. Science, 134(3491), pp.1674-1676.
  5. Hayes, S.P., Mangum, L.J., Picaut, J., Sumi, A. and Takeuchi, K., 1991. TOGA-TAO: A moored array for real-time measurements in the tropical Pacific Ocean. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 72(3), pp.339-347.
  6. SCOR Working Group, 2007. GEOTRACES–An international study of the global marine biogeochemical cycles of trace elements and their isotopes. Geochemistry, 67(2), pp.85-131.
  7. Harvey, M.J., Law, C.S., Smith, M.J., Hall, J.A., Abraham, E.R., Stevens, C.L., Hadfield, M.G., Ho, D.T., Ward, B., Archer, S.D. and Cainey, J.M., 2011. The SOLAS air–sea gas exchange experiment (SAGE) 2004. Deep Sea Research Part II: Topical Studies in Oceanography, 58(6), pp.753-763.
  8. Meredith, M.P., Mazloff, M., Sallee, J.B., Newman, L., Wahlin, A., Williams, M.J.M., Garabato, A.C.N., Swart, S., Monteiro, P., Mata, M.M. and Schmidtko, S., 2015. The Southern Ocean Observing System (SOOS). Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 96(7), pp.S157-S160.