SURFACE OCEAN pCO₂ VARIABILITY AND VULNERABILITIES WORKSHOP, 11-14 April 2007, UNESCO, Paris, France (Contributed by N.Metzl and B. Tilbrook (co-chairs)).  In October 2005, the first joint meeting of the IOCCP and the SOLAS-IMBER Carbon group (SIC) was held during the 7th International CO2 conference in Broomfield, Colorado. A major outcome of the Broomfield gathering was an agreement for IOCCP to work with the SIC-SOS sub-group (Surface Ocean Systems) to plan an international workshop on the scientific basis for VOS network design and data synthesis efforts related to CO2 sources and sinks in the ocean. The workshop was titled the Surface Ocean CO2 Variability and Vulnerabilities (SOCOV), and was planned and held at UNESCO, Paris (co-chairs N.Metzl, IPSL/France, B.Tilbrook, CSIRO/Australia and R.Dargaville/IOCCP). The meeting was co-sponsored by IOCCP, SOLAS, IMBER, and the Global Carbon Project.

The main goals of the meeting were:
(i) to review our knowledge of the air-sea CO2 flux variability and uncertainties from seasonal to decadal scales, and to promote global CO2 data synthesis activities,
(ii) to address new questions regarding the vulnerability of the oceanic carbon cycle,
(iii) to obtain prior to the meeting, at national and regional levels, information on recent and future CO2 VOS lines, time-series stations, and ocean carbon processes studies, and
(iv) to develop future observing system and data management strategies for ocean carbon sources and sinks.

!!!! Deep Sea Research II will accept papers from the workshop participants for publication in a special issue. The deadline for submission is August 31 2007. Guidelines for submission to DSR II: http://www.ioc.unesco.org/ioccp/pCO2_workshop/DSR-II_Guidelines.pdf .

To read the co-chairs summary in full, click here
Summary from the Second meeting of the SOLAS/IMBER Carbon research group, by Sylvie Roy for IOCCP Newsletter.

SOCOVV article by Metzl et al, IMBER Update, Issue N°7, June 2007

Online Publication of the SOCOVV Workshop

SOCOVV article in EOS, Vol.88, n°28, 2007 by Metzl et al.

SOCOVV Workshop, IOCCP Report n°7

Surface Ocean CO2 Atlas (SOCAT) Project
At the “Surface Ocean CO2 Variability and Vulnerability” workshop in April 2007, co-sponsored by IOCCP, SOLAS, IMBER, and the Global Carbon Project, participants agreed to establish a standard global surface CO2 data set that would bring together, in a common format, all publicly available surface CO2 data. 

The IOCCP and the SOLAS-IMBER Carbon Coordination Group established 5 regional working groups to identify data not yet included in the global standard data set by December 2007. The groups are: North Atlantic (including Arctic) – Ute Schuster (UEA, UK) Pacific – Richard Feely (NOAA/PMEL, USA) Southern Ocean – Bronte Tilbrook (CSIRO, Australia) Indian Ocean – V.V.S.S. Sarma (NIO, India) Coastal Ocean – Arthur Chen (National Sun Yat-sen University, Taiwan) and Alberto Borges (U. Liege, Belgium)
Further information

Useful Web Resources:
The Ocean Acidification Network: an information network for the International Scientific Community