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Why Manage Data?
Raymond Pollard and Sophie Beauvais1
1IMBER Deputy Executive Officer, Institut Universitaire Européen de la Mer, Plouzané, France
sophie.beauvais@univ-brest.fr
The IMBER Data Management Committee has been working to anticipate questions you may have about data management and to provide answers, so why not give the IMBER Data Portal a try.
What are some of the stumbling blocks?
“Where do I start? I have tried, and ran straight into jargon and forms I don’t understand.” Try the IMBER Data Management cookbook for step-by-step ‘recipes’ to guide you through data management from the very start of a project. Please try using it when planning and executing your next project and let us know (Sophie.Beauvais@univ-brest.fr) what we should change or add to make it more useful.
“What’s in it for me?” This is perhaps the most fundamental question, as researchers often don’t see any benefits to themselves as individuals, and think that it is far more important to write a paper. However, being able to reference your data set (by a Digital Object Identifier, say) in the reference list of your publication would be a way for you to gain additional citations. It is being considered by SCOR and IODE (SCOR/IODE Workshop on Data Publishing, 2008). But there are many other benefits. If you are a young scientist, we really urge you to consider taking on the role of Data Scientist (see cookbook) for a cruise or project. You would learn a lot from this experience, not just about data management, but also improve your interpersonal and management skills (check the cookbook to see how) and it will look good on your CV.
“What’s in it for my project?” Masses! For a start, there is data security from the moment that data are first collected, which is when they are at their most vulnerable. Then, there is quality control. Allowing a few experts and close colleagues to use your data is a good way to find any errors, thus improving and enhancing your data. Providing metadata to the GCMD portal (see article below) publicizes your project and provides links to other similar projects. This may lead to interesting comparisons and more publications.
“Why are there so many rules?” We have kept the IMBER Data Policy as concise and as clear as possible. The aim is to help people work together without any misinterpretation.
“I can’t afford the time!” That’s a false premise. How much time do you waste searching for things (your keys! your data!) because you aren’t organized? When you do find the right data file, how often is it missing vital information or do you find errors or that calibrations haven’t been done? Or you produce the track plot for the paper you are about to submit and find CTD stations that don’t lie on the track! You then have to spend even more time searching or correcting.
The message should be obvious! Time spent on planning and executing good data management right at the beginning of a project will save you time later.
Please try it. And contact Sophie if you get stuck.
SCOR/IODE Workshop on Data Publishing, Oostende, Belgium, 17-19 June 2008. Paris, UNESCO, 23pp. 2008. (IOC Workshop Report No. 207) (English) available at http://www.scor-int.org/Publications/wr207.pdf
Working groups - Data Management Committee 1IMBER Deputy Executive Officer, Institut Universitaire Européen de la Mer, Plouzané, France
sophie.beauvais@univ-brest.fr
Proper management of your data, during and after the cruise and once the project has finished, is good publicity for your project and ensures that others can use the data immediately and in the future. If your data set is to be useful to anyone else, it needs to be well described, ideally while it is still fresh in your memory. You need to provide information such as: Where did you collect it? What methods did you use? How did you calibrate the instruments? What other data are required? Where can the data be obtained? Whose permission is needed to use the data? Such information is known as metadata.
IMBER has adopted the Directory Interchange Format (DIF) as a discovery metadata standard. The big advantage in using DIF is that records can be easily created, checked and managed through NASA's Global Change Master Directory (GCMD). GCMD is a comprehensive source of information about satellite and in-situ Earth science data, with broad coverage of the atmosphere, hydrosphere, oceans, the earth, and biosphere. The directory resource serves as a central location for sharing data from multinational sources and, in turn, will contribute to scientific research by providing stewardship of metadata and direct access to Earth science data and services. This search engine is internationally recognized by the marine community. It directs users to almost 5,000 ocean data set descriptions.
A customized metadata portal within GCMD has been set up for IMBER and can be accessed at: http://gcmd.nasa.gov/portals/imber/. Creating your DIF through the GCMD portal will take no more than 30 minutes depending on your experience and you will gain several benefits! This portal will allow you to maintain a secure record of your achievements, advertise your project to the global marine science community and find other projects and data relevant to your field. To look at an example DIF, click on “IMBER Data Sets” (left navigational bar), then click on record 1, “CROZEX”. The IMBER Data Liaison Officer, Sophie Beauvais (sophie.beauvais@univ-brest.fr) will assist you in creating your DIF and publishing your metadata on the GCMD Portal. Guidelines may be found in the Data Management Cookbook at http://planktondata.net/imber/ under Appendix B “How to create DIFs for IMBER?”
Science Highlight The Dark Ocean: Changing Paradigms in a Changing Ocean – A special session of the 2009 ASLO Aquatic Sciences Meeting
Dennis A. Hansell1, Javier Arístegui2, Gerhard Herndl3
1Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science , University of Miami, USA
2Facultad de Ciencias del Mar, Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain
3Department of Marine Biology, University of Vienna, Austria
The dynamics of ecosystems and biogeochemistry in the dark ocean (i.e., the meso- and bathypelagic depth zones) have come under increasing scrutiny over the past decade. Considerable focus had previously been placed on the biological and elemental dynamics of the euphotic zone during major projects such as the Joint Global Ocean Flux Study (1988 - 2003), and with that came considerable new knowledge and analytical capability. This knowledge naturally led to new science questions, and the deep ocean elicited many of those.
The dark ocean is, in terms of volume, the largest yet least known oceanic subsystem, in spite of being the largest reservoir of bio-active carbon in the biosphere. Traditionally, this vast volume of ocean was considered almost barren of life and of low overall biogeochemical activity. Over the past 10 years, however, physical oceanographers and geochemists have increasingly reported variations and changes in the formation and hydrodynamics of the deep-water masses linked to signs of global change. An increase in temperature in the deep-water masses has been noticed for the Atlantic as well as the Pacific, and the invasion of anthropogenic carbon dioxide occurs deep into the North Atlantic. Recent methodological advances ranging from cabled networks and autonomous sensor systems to genomics have resulted in more detailed information on the biogeochemistry and biology of the ocean’s interior. Novel metabolic pathways of prokaryotes have been discovered, and the geochemical estimates of element cycles in the deep-ocean have been compared to actual rate measurements on deep-sea communities and to the genomic inventory of microbes. Taken together, the emerging view is that the deep-ocean is more dynamic and harbours a more complex biogeochemistry and biota than hitherto assumed.
Following the success of the First IMBER IMBIZO in 2008, which highlighted knowledge gaps that exist in the deep-sea, a special session was organized for the 2009 ASLO Aquatic Sciences Meeting held in Nice, France. The session featured 17 contributed presentations by 58 authors. These covered a wide range of variables and their interactions, including dissolved organic matter, suspended particles, bacteria and Archaea communities and abundances, extracellular enzymes, oxygen, and pressure. Processes evaluated included export by sinking particles and by downward mixing of dissolved organic carbon (DOC), carbon fixation by chemoautotrophs, organic matter sinks and sources, microbial productivity, particle stratification, pressure effects on physiology, and respiration.
The major challenge facing these scientists is to develop a deeper understanding of the connectivity between these variables and processes, as well as sensitivities to the changing environment. A more synthetic view of the system must be developed, but continued exchanges of insights developed by scientists such as those who attended the IMBIZO and the ASLO special session, and contributed papers to the IMBIZO special issue of Deep-Sea Research II, is also required. To address these fascinating challenges in the context of a changing ocean, a major international research initiative should be established via the IMBER project, linking physical, biogeochemical, and microbial processes. This holistic approach will shed light on the still largely enigmatic processes in the dark ocean.
1V.I. Il’ichev Pacific Oceanological Institute, FEB RAS, Vladivostok, Russia
tpavel@poi.dvo.ru
Amursky Bay is a part of Peter the Great Bay located in the northwestern Japan Sea. Its width varies from 10 - 22 km and average depth is about 30m. The Razdolnaya River flows into northern part of the bay. This river originates in China and has an average annual discharge of 72 m3/s. One of the largest cities of the Russian Far East region, Vladivostok is located on the eastern coast of the bay (Fig.1). Recent growth of economic activity and ambitious plans of the Russian Federal government for regional development, including construction of huge facilities in coastal area in relation to APEC-2012 Summit could have a significant impact on the bay ecosystem. Even at the moment, human activities result in detectable amounts of trace metals, oil, suspended matter and nutrients (Vashchenko, 2000). Detailed studies of the variability of species and distribution of phytoplankton conclude that the water of Amursky Bay is eutrophic to extremely eutrophic (Stonik and Selina, 1995). There are two main sources of nutrients: waste water from Vladivistok city and discharge from the Razdolnaya River. The river delivers double the phosphates and five times as much inorganic nitrogen as waste waters of Vladivostok. It was found that phytoplankton blooms might be caused by the enhanced supply of nutrients into the upper layer by increased discharge from the river on short-time scales (Tishchenko et al., 2005). A high water phase of the Razdolnaya River discharge approaching 1000 m3/s usually occurs late July or early August and is often accompanied by strong winds caused by typhoons. Under these conditions, river water enriched by suspended matter and nutrients cover a large part of the bay area. Just following the settling of suspended matter, conditions perfect for phytoplankton blooms occur due to the strong stratification of the water column, nutrient-enriched surface layer and almost total absence of zooplankton due to strong water dynamics. Thereafter the phytoplankton die and sink to the bottom in large numbers. Microbiological decay of dead diatoms under conditions of light deficiency (at depth more than 15m) intensively consumes dissolved oxygen and produces phosphates, inorganic nitrogen, silicates and dissolved inorganic carbon. This causes hypoxia near-bottom waters. The first time that a severe hypoxia occurred over a large area of the Amursky Bay was in August, 2007, with the lowest oxygen concentration being about 5 ųM, (Fig. 2; Tishchenko et al., 2008). Hypoxia of Amursky Bay occurred again in August, 2008. Our data suggest that hypoxia is seasonal with a peak at the end of summer and complete recovery of the system in winter due to strong winds. Its regular occurrence in recent years and possible increase in intensity could signal negative changes which may have serious consequences. In September 2008 many small fishes died in the Amursky Bay. This may be related to the development of hypoxia. It is believed that a sulfate reduction occurred in near-bottom waters and/or on the surface sediments. Strong winds at this time resulted in mixing of the poisoned bottom-water which were transported upwards and killed the fish.
Fig.1 - Amursky Bay located in the northwestern Japan Sea with one the major Russian cities Vladivostok on its coast.
Why had severe hypoxia not been observed in Amursky Bay previously? The answer could be related to the increase in nutrient transport into the bay and weakening of the winds. Agricultural activity has intensified in the valley of the Razdolnaya River recently resulting in increased eutrophication of the bay. A hydrochemical study of the Razdolnaya River has been initiated. Ventilation of the bay is related to horizontal advection of bottom-water during the autumn upwelling period winter thermohaline convection and wind-induced mixing. Tidal mixing is weak in this area. Summer, when the hypoxia events occurred is usually characterized by low winds with the exception of stormy periods as a result of typhoons approaching the area. In recent years, however, the number and intensity of summer storms has decreased providing stronger stratification of the water column, preventing vertical mixing and providing conditions for hypoxia development. There is also a multi-year accumulation of organic matter on the sediments in the bay. Consequently, each year the consumption of oxygen at near-bottom layer increases and leads to hypoxia during summer when mixing of the bottom-water is minimal. Further investigations should be undertaken to answer these questions and to establish an efficient monitoring system of the Amursky Bay.
References
Stonik I.V. and Selina M.S. 1995. Russ. J. Mar. Biology. V. 21. N6. P. 403-406.
Tishchenko P.Ya., et al. 2005. Russ. J. Mar. Biology. V. 31, ;N1. P. 51-60.
Tishchenko P.Ya., et al. 2008. Bulletin Far Eastern Branch Rus. Acad. Sci. N6. P. 115-125.
Vashchenko M.A. 2000. Russ. J. Mar. Biology. V. 26. N3. P. 149-159.
Meeting reportsIMBER held its sixth Scientific Steering Committee (SSC) meeting at UNESCO-IOC in Paris, France on 2-5 June 2009. The SSC members and staff of the International Project office (IPO), IMBER sponsors IGBP and SCOR, ICED and SIBER were joined at various stages of the meeting by representatives from SOLAS, the IOC, and from some of the current GLOBEC programmes (BASIN, CLIOTOP, ESSAS, FUTURE, SPACC).
High on the agenda were discussions pertaining to ‘the way forward for IMBER’ and a short document outlining future plans will be published in the next issue of IMBER Update.
The minutes of the SSC meeting will soon be available on the IMBER website.
Ed Urban
Executive Director of Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research, College of Marine and Earth Studies, University of Delaware, USA
Ed.Urban@scor-int.org
Thanks to funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR) was able to bring together representatives of the major SCOR-sponsored/affiliated ocean research projects to discuss common opportunities and challenges. These included the Census of Marine Life (CoML), Global Ecology and Oceanography of Harmful Algal Blooms (GEOHAB) program, GEOTRACES project, Global Ocean Ecosystem Dynamics (GLOBEC) project, Integrated Marine Biogeochemistry and Ecosystem Research (IMBER) project, International Ocean Carbon Coordination Project (IOCCP), and Surface Ocean – Lower Atmosphere Study (SOLAS). IMBER was represented at the meeting by Julie Hall, the IMBER SSC Chair. Representatives from the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission, International Council for the Exploration of the Seas, North Pacific Marine Sciences Organization, and Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research also participated. This third SCOR Project Summit was held at the University of Delaware (USA) on 30 March-1 April 2009. The meeting provided a good opportunity for the projects to share information about how they promote project visibility and disseminate the results of project activities, how they interact with regional and global intergovernmental organizations, what they are doing in terms of capacity building, their plans for time-series sites, and how their data management and modelling activities are developing. Participants agreed to several actions to increase cooperation amongst projects, including
- Greater linkage of project newsletters and Web sites, and help from SCOR in disseminating project newsletters to the global ocean science community
- Outreach to intergovernmental organizations and development of sessions and posters for their meetings
- New linkages from projects and intergovernmental organizations to SCOR’s capacity-building activities
- Investigation of a Web-casting facility supported by SCOR for the projects.
- Encouragement of a proposal for a SCOR working group on Ocean Observation Simulation Experiments
- Exploration of the benefits of a cross-project modelling meeting
Participants agreed that another summit in two to three years would be useful, as would cross-project meetings on several specific topics, such as data management and capacity building.
Open session on SOLAS and sensitivity of marine ecosystems and biogeochemical cycles to climate change at the European Geosciences Union in Vienna, Austria
Véronique Garçon
CNRS/Laboratoire d'Etudes en Géophysique et Océanographie Spatiale, Université Paul Sabatier, France
The Surface Ocean Lower Atmosphere Study (SOLAS) project had a special session at the European Geosciences Union General Assembly 2009 (20-24 April 2009, Vienna, Austria). This was a joint session with topics dealing on sensitivity of marine ecosystems and biogeochemical cycles to climate change” topics organized by Baris Salihoglu, Christiane Lancelot and Véronique Garçon. Thus, the session comprised many aspects of marine biogeochemistry and ecosystem dynamics and their links to lower atmosphere and climate change effects. The total number of presentations was 30.
Our first keynote speaker Hermann Bange focused on trace gas measurements (N2O, CH4, DMS) in the upwelling area off Mauritania performed between 2005 and 2008. Results showed that this region is a hotspot of trace gas emissions exhibiting a complex seasonal and spatial variability. The next talk by Nicolas Metzl reported decadal variability of oceanic pCO2 observed in the Southern ocean. The oceanic pCO2 growth rate was shown to be always greater or equal to the atmospheric growth rate over the last decade. The observed trend in oceanic CO2 was found consistent with the positive phases of the Southern Annular Mode with a difference in trend before and after year 2000. Some results from the North Atlantic CO2 data set showed that the recent rapid shifts in CO2 flux over the 1979-2004 period are decadal perturbations superimposed on the secular trends emphasizing the need for long-term carbon observations. A presentation discussed carbon storage in the North Atlantic and the intra-annual changes of the dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) carbon fluxes at 24.5°N. Most of the carbon flux variability was determined by the oceanic circulation variability. Oceans are one source of atmospheric H2, produced by biological processes such as fermentation, N2 fixation and abiotic photochemical processes. First results on hydrogen measurements carried out off the West African coast of Mauritania were presented.
Our session continued the next morning focusing more on modelling studies from various regions. It started with our second keynote speaker Stephanie Dutkiewicz. She examined the interplay between ecology and biogeochemical cycles within a 3D context where self-assembling phytoplankton communities may emerge from a wide set of potentially viable cell types. This elegant modelling approach yields plausible organization of the emergent community structure by the physical regime: fast growing bloom specialists are encountered in strongly seasonal regions whereas organisms growing at low nutrient concentrations are found in stable, low-seasonality regimes. Sensitivity experiments clearly showed that changes to the phytoplankton physiology have a predictable effect on nutrients concentrations. One of the presentations demonstrated that the North West European Shelf is a net sink of atmospheric CO2: shelf edge regions tend to be strong sinks, open stratified regions are neutral or weaker sinks and the very coastal areas are either sources or sinks. Zouhair Lachkar then showed a nice comparative study of the four Eastern Boundary Upwelling systems (EBUS) by investigating the impacts of changes in upwelling favorable winds on the productivity of the EBUS, using eddy resolving simulations with the ROMS (Regional Ocean Modelling System) model and a simple Nutrient-Phytoplankton-Zooplankton-Detritus (NPZD) type model. Results from the CROZEX experiment around the Crozet Islands in the south Western Indian ocean were shown highlighting the greater efficiency of carbon export for the natural iron fertilisation experiments, confirming the KEOPS results around Kerguelen Island. The subsequent talks reported on physical/biogeochemical interactions altering the uptake of CO2 in the Barents Sea, on the sensitivity of air-sea CO2 exchange and calcite saturation depth to the remineralization depth of marine particulate organic and inorganic carbon, and on the temperature sensitivity of organic matter remineralization in the mesopelagic zone. J. Chen presented a quite complete overview of the Chinese expedition program in the Arctic Chukchi Sea and Canadian basin over the recent years (1999, 2003, and 2008). Because of its sea ice cover, the Arctic ocean was not considered as a CO2 sink. Preliminary results shown suggest that this region, one of the largest shelves in the world, might play a crucial role in the global carbon sink when sea ice shrinks. Finally the Southern Australia Integrated Marine Observing System (SAIMOS) designed to observe Australia’s oceans, both coastal and blue-water was presented.
The corresponding poster session also included a diversity of interesting topics. Presentation on collating SOLAS data to ensure perennity under the IPO SOLAS and COST Action 735 umbrella was made. Several presentations on CO2 observations (an autonomous drifting buoy system and long term observations in the North Atlantic subpolar gyre) were made. The relationship between DMS concentration and the upper mixed layer solar radiation dose was investigated showing a weak correlation between the two, in contrast with Vallina and Simo’s (2007) findings. Presentations on links between phytoplankton, CO2 emissions and water properties over the Portuguese coastal waters were insightful. Satellite measurements of back-scattered sunlight can help constrain parameters in an ocean carbon cycle model and the PHYSAT method applied to the historical ocean color data series from CZCS, OCTS and SeaWiFS sensors provides a global distribution of the phytoplankton groups over a 20 year time scale.
The diversity of topics presented in our session made this session a very lively session. We are hoping to put together a similar session for the 2010 EGU (May 2-7), so please be prepared and consider submitting your research to our session early next year.
Programme details of the EGU 2009 “Open session on SOLAS and sensitivity of marine ecosystems and biogeochemical cycles to climate change” can be found under:
http://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2009/oral_programme/725 and
http://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2009/poster_programme/725
The first Southern Ocean Sentinel Workshop 'Monitoring climate change impacts on marine biodiversity: establishing a Southern Ocean Sentinel program' took place in April 2009 in Hobart, Australia. This workshop aimed to consider how to measure, assess and provide early-warning detection of climate change impacts on the Southern Ocean and how these could be used to signal future impacts on marine and other ecosystems elsewhere in the world.
Aside from the crossover in topics this program is particularly relevant to those associated with ICED as it plans to coordinate with ICED and other programs to establish required research programs and implement longer term monitoring.
To read more about the meeting please go to the Australian Antarctic Division website and the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre:
http://www.aad.gov.au/default.asp?casid=35088
http://www.acecrc.org.au/drawpage.cgi?pid=antarctica_climate_change
IMBER sponsored meetings Joint Workshop: SOCAT (Surface Ocean CO2 ATlas) Coastal Regional Group & COST Action 735 Working Group 3
The meeting took place in IFM-GEOMAR, Kiel, Germany on 22-23 January 2009.
The SOCAT database was identified as a priority for the SIC-SOS (SOLAS-IMBER Carbon group, Surface Ocean subgroup) activity. During the SOCOVV meeting, regional principal investigators (PIs) were identified (Figure 1). The SIC-SOS members involved in the SOCAT groups are: D. Bakker (Global, Southern Ocean, and Atlantic), A. Borges (Coastal), N. Metzl (Global, Southern Ocean, Indian Ocean, North Atlantic).
The SOCAT meeting was co-organized by Alberto Borges, co-chair of the SIC-SOS group.
The two primary aims of SOCAT are to establish a 2nd level quality controlled global surface ocean fCO2 data set and to create a gridded SOCAT product of monthly surface water fCO2 means, with no temporal or spatial interpolation (i.e. bin averages).
The SOCAT Coastal Regional Group added two secondary elements: coastal climatology of fCO2 and air-sea CO2 fluxes.
These four objectives would be achieved through several actions:
- Identification of areas of interest and PIs in view of 2nd level quality control (QC);
- Achieving 2nd level QC (in particular handling high spatial and temporal variability of fCO2 in coastal waters);
- Gridding procedures (spatial extent of the coastal zone, grid resolution for binning the fCO2 data, interpolation);
- Collapsing data into a single virtual year taking into account the change in atmospheric CO2 and inter-annual variability;
- Computation of air-sea CO2 fluxes (atmospheric CO2, gas transfer velocity parameterization and wind speed data source).
Several issues were raised that led to recommendations for the other SOCAT regional groups.
Hosting by IFM-GEOMAR is warmly acknowledged. Travel and accommodation of participants was covered by COST 735, SFB754, IMBER, and CARBO-OCEAN.
References
Ho D.T., C.S. Law, M.J. Smith, P. Schlosser, M. Harvey & P. Hill 2006. Measurements of air-sea gas exchange at high wind speeds in the Southern Ocean: Implications for global parameterizations, Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 33, L16611, doi:10.1029/2006GL026817
Nightingale P. D.,P. S. Liss , and P. Schlosser 2000. Measurements of air-sea gas transfer during an open ocean algal bloom. Geophys. Res. Lett. 27, 2117-2120.
Sweeney, C., E. Gloor, A. R. Jacobson, R. M. Key, G. McKinley, J. L. Sarmiento, and R. Wanninkhof 2007. Constraining global air-sea gas exchange for CO2 with recent bomb 14C measurements, Global Biogeochem. Cycles, 21, GB2015, doi:10.1029/2006GB002784.
22-23 June 2009, Paris, France
http://www.imber.info/IMBER_SOLAS_Home.html
The first IMBER/SOLAS French Meeting was held in Paris in June 2009 at University Paris 7. This informal two-day meeting provided participants with insights into marine science related to IMBER and SOLAS topics by French scientists. The main objectives were to highlight the scientific questions common to IMBER and SOLAS and to develop new collaborations. The meeting was organized by Véronique Garçon (LEGOS, Toulouse), Jean-Pierre Gattuso (LOV, Villefranche/Mer), Cécile Guieu (LOV, Villefranche/Mer), Rémi Losno (LISA, Paris) and the IMBER International Project Office (IUEM, Brest) and financed by LEFE-CYBER.
The meeting was comprised of six sessions: ‘Nutrients and marine ecosystems’ (Chair: K. Desboeufs), ‘Atmospheric aerosols’ (Chair: C. Guieu), ‘Anthropogenic carbon and acidification’ (Chair: R. Losno), ‘Biogeochemical cycles and marine ecosystems’ (Chairs: J.-P. Gattuso & Hervé Claustre), ‘Transversal actions’ (Chair: V. Garçon) and ‘Trace gases and CO2’ (Chair: S. Belviso). Each session was divided into series of 15 minute presentation followed by discussions. Sixty participants from 14 French laboratories and institutions attended the meeting. It was also a good opportunity for PhD and young scientists to present their works to the national oceanographic community.
Some of the presentations from the IMBER/SOLAS French Meeting can be found on the Web site under: http://www.imber.info/IMBER_SOLAS_Programme.html
Partner programmes 
Jay Cullen
Earth and Ocean Sciences, University of Victoria, Canada
GEOTRACES (a SCOR-sponsored international initiative) aims to identify processes and quantify fluxes that control the distributions of key trace elements and isotopes in the ocean, and to establish the sensitivity of these distributions to changing environmental conditions. The GEOTRACES community is moving forward with the intercalibration component of the program in order to achieve the best accuracy possible (lowest random and systematic errors) for the suite of GEOTRACES’ Trace Elements and Isotopes (TEI). This is a prelude to the sampling program, and a continuing effort throughout the sampling and analysis program. To achieve these goals the community will:
1) Evaluate and develop GEOTRACES sample acquisition, handling, and storage protocols during initial intercalibration cruises; and,
2) Identify existing GEOTRACES primary standards and certified reference materials (CRMs) for the TEI suite (and where needed, produce reference materials or primary standards), including the establishment of GEOTRACES baseline stations, that can be used to evaluate accuracy from sampling through to analysis (to facilitate intercalibration for TEIs that do not have CRMs).
The first US GEOTRACES intercalibration cruise was successfully carried out in the western North Atlantic aboard the R/V Knorr between June 8 and July 12 2009 under the direction of co-chief scientists Greg Cutter (Old Dominion University), Rob Sherrell (Rutgers University) and Ken Bruland (University of California Santa Cruz). The operation involved international collaborators and was divided into two legs whose goals were to:
1)
Test the new Seabird Carousel sampling system against known methods, and modify as needed (ship-board trace metal analyses).
2) Test particle sampling: small volume GO-Flo filtration vs. in-situ pumps (McLane and MULVFS).
3)
Perform intercalibration sampling (two depths, 1000L) and vertical profiles at the Bermuda Atlantic Time Series Station (BATS) and Shelf Break Stations for dissolved and particulate TEIs. Establish the BATS as a GEOTRACES baseline station.
Progress made on 1 and 2 are summarized below. One of the key aspects of the initial U.S. GEOTRACES intercalibration cruise in the North Atlantic at a station close to the BATS station was to test the ability of the new U.S. GEOTRACES Carousel sampling system to collect uncontaminated samples for the suite of key GEOTRACES trace metals and isotopes. The U.S. GEOTRACES Carousel is a titanium system with 24 separate 12 L Teflon coated GO-Flo bottles mounted on it. The system has 8000 meters of Kevlar conducting cable and is capable of tripping 3 samples simultaneously at a selected depth while slowly moving through the water. The GO-Flo samplers are processed and stored in a clean van that is a critical part of this U.S. GEOTRACES sampling system. This system was compared with a variety of other proven sampling systems, including 30 L Teflon coated GO-Flo samplers hung on Kevlar line (Ken Bruland, UCSC), MITESS samplers (Ed Boyle, MIT), UAF Vane samplers (Jingfeng Wu, University of Alaska, Fairbanks), and the CLIVAR Rosette system (Bill Landing, FSU). A number of experienced shipboard analysts assisted in this effort: dissolved Fe - Maeve Lohan (Plymouth, UK), Ana Aguilar-Islas (UAF), Max Grand and Mariko Hatta (UH); dissolved Al - Matt Brown (UCSC), Max Grand and Mariko Hatta (UH); and dissolved Zn - Jay Cullen (U of Victoria) and Sherry Lippiatt (UCSC). The group was able to identify approximately 30 of the GO-Flo samplers that appeared to be capable of collecting uncontaminated samples (the "A- team"). The A-team was used on the U.S. GEOTRACES Carousel during the remainder of the cruise to obtain a practice profile and then eventually a baseline profile for trace metals and an additional one for trace metal isotopes. Samples from the baseline profiles were collected for a variety of national and international laboratories for shore-based analyses. This data is being gathered by Ken Bruland and will be made available. An additional aspect of the U.S. GEOTRACES intercalibration cruises is to provide intercalibration samples for the international community. To start with, Ken Bruland and Geoffrey Smith (UCSC) are providing SAFe intercomparison samples to the international community that have proved to be excellent uncontaminated standards for all the key GEOTRACES trace metals. In addition, Bruland and Smith used the SAFe tanks to collect an additional set of Atlantic GEOTRACES intercomparison samples from both the surface and depth of 2000 meters.
During the second Pacific GEOTRACES Intercalibration cruise between Hawaii and San Diego, the community will collect additional, large volume, Pacific surface water GEOTRACES intercomparison samples. Results from analyses of these samples are being reported to Ken Bruland (UCSC). We are close to being ready to share the results of the SAFe intercomparison samples for all the key GEOTRACES trace metals. Preliminary results from this research suggest that the U.S. GEOTRACES Carousel sampling system (with proper rinsing prior to use, and using the "A-team" GO-Flo samplers) appears to be able to collect uncontaminated samples for all trace metals with the possible exception of dissolved Zn. The analyses of the SAFe and GEOTRACES intercomparison samples, along with the Atlantic baseline profile indicate that UV pretreatment of samples to destroy metal binding organic ligands is necessary for the analyses of dissolved Co by all of the methods. Either isotope dilution with an adequate equilibration in the acidified samples or UV oxidation appears to be necessary for the accurate determination of dissolved Cu by some methods. UV pretreatment does not appear to be necessary for most of the other key trace metals. A focus of the Pacific cruise will be on speciation of trace metals. In addition, further intercomparison studies of different types of capsule filters used by various national and international research groups, as well as further studies of membrane filters will be carried out to evaluate any possible differences in dissolved trace metals that might occur as a result of the operational filtration systems. Finally, a Pacific baseline profile (24 depths) will be obtained.
GEOTRACES Atlantic intercalibration research cruise Leg 1 participants: From left to right: C. Lingle (ODU), J. Santos-Echeandia (Spain), H. Obata (U. Tokyo), S. Lippiat (UCSC), P. Morton (ODU), M. Hatta (U. Hawaii), K. Norisuye (U. Tokyo), T. Babila (Rutgers U.), B. Sohst (UCSC), C. Theodore (Rutgers U.), M. Brown (UCSC), K. Bruland (co-chief scientist, UCSC), G. Smith (UCSC), B. Gipson (ODU), G. Cutter (chief scientist, ODU), M. Grand (U. Hawaii), J. Wu (UAF), S. Severmann (Rutgers U.), C. Lamborg (WHOI), B. Landing (FSU), C. Li (UAF), S. John (MIT/Caltech), S. Gichuki (UConn), R. Rember (UAF), E. Boyle (MIT), M. Lohan (U. Plymouth), J. Cullen (U. Victoria), A. Aguilar-Islas (UAF), K. Gosnell (FSU). Missing: R. Sherrell (co-chief scientist, Rutgers U.)
