From: Scott Doney
A brief update on the SMP:
New faces
As many of you may know, Rob DeConto at NCAR has been helping me with SMP over the last 6 months on issues such as the model-data policy, the Durham workshop and a simple biogeochemical model for OCMIP. I am sad to say that Rob will be leaving NCAR in Jan. to take a faculty position at UMass Amherst in the Earth Science Dept. Rob will continue to participate in SMP as time permits, and we all wish him the best in his new position. An offer has been made to Dr. Joan Kleypas (kleypas@ucar.edu) to replace Rob, and I hope she will be on board by December.
Summer workshop for 1999
The tentative topic for the summer SMP workshop for 1999 is:
"The large-scale ocean carbon cycle: data-based and modeling perspectives."
I have attached below the email I circulated in early October to the SMP management group, and a very similar outline was presented to the JGOFS SC in October. The suggestions back so far have been to focus the meeting on a more specific topic within this larger framework, in particular to try to bring together the ocean carbon community (air-sea CO2 flux, DIC inventories) with the primary production community (satellite based production and export estimates; field production estimates). I would like to finalize the topic and begin planning the workshop prior to the end of the year so any comments would be greatly appreciated.
PI-meeting
Last year, the SMP program held two separate meetings, a PI meeting in May in Boulder and a summer scientific workshop on biogeochemical response to climate change in Durham. Motivated in part by budget concerns, the question has been raised whether we need two separate meetings or if it would be better to have the summer workshop serve dual-purposes. The planning office now thinks they have sufficient funds for two large meetings if needed, but I am leaning toward a single summer meeting and then saving any extra funds for small, targeted meetings of for example the working groups. This would also bring the focus of the summer workshop back more to the SMP PIs and the community activities that we can accomplish within SMP. Any comments from the SMP PIs in particular?
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It is time again to discuss next summers SMP workshop (prompted by the JGOFS Steering Committee meeting next week in Woods Hole).
Several people have suggested that the next workshop should be more "hands-on" (with respect to the JGOFS data) and more closely involve the funded SMP PIs, and I agree fully. The end date for JGOFS SMP is already rapidly approaching, and there is still much work to be done to synthesize all of the JGOFS data.
With that in mind, I would propose that the summer `99 workshop address:
"The large-scale ocean carbon cycle: data-based and modeling perspectives."
The scientific focus would be to quantify to the best of our abilities the basin to global scale carbon budget both from observations and models, to identify mismatches between data and models and different types of data, and to foster the compilation and distribution of a wide variety of relevant data sets and data products (both JGOFS and non-JGOFS sources).
Starting from the surface, the main discussion areas would cover (including some example topics/questions):
air-sea CO2 and O2 fluxes
horizontal transports of inorganic carbon, DOM, oxygen, nitrogen
Remineralization, deep-sediment traps and sediment remineralization rates (including CaCO3 and silicate) and others etc.
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Scott Doney
Climate and Global Dynamics
National Center for Atmospheric Research
P.O. Box 3000
Boulder, CO 80307
(303) 497-1639
(303) 497-1700 fax
email: doney@ncar.ucar.edu
world wide web: http://www.cgd.ucar.edu:80/oce/doney/doney.html
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