Welcome to OCB

OCB Mission

The scientific mission of OCB is to study the evolving role of the ocean in the global carbon cycle, in the face of environmental variability and change through studies of marine biogeochemical cycles and associated ecosystems.

Overarching Scientific Themes

Improve understanding and prediction of:
1) oceanic uptake and release of atmospheric CO2 and other greenhouse gases;
2) environmental sensitivities of biogeochemical cycles, marine ecosystems, and interactions between the two   

Currently Identified Priorities

- Ocean acidification
- Terrestrial/coastal carbon fluxes and exchanges
- Climate sensitivities of and change in ecosystem structure and associated impacts on biogeochemical cycles
- Mesopelagic ecological and biogeochemical interactions
- Benthic-pelagic feedbacks on biogeochemical cycles
- Ocean carbon uptake and storage
- Expanding low-oxygen conditions in the coastal and open oceans

 

OCB Information Resources

 

Community News

MARCH 13: Partnership for Observation of the Global Oceans (POGO) releases final Honolulu Declaration

JANUARY 2: First Order Draft of Working Group I contribution to the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report "Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis" available for open review period: December 16, 2011 - February 10, 2012

DECEMBER 16: Professor Ulf Riebesell honored as one of the scientists receiving the distinguished Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize in 2012

DECEMBER 12: Congratulations to the newly elected AAAS Fellows, among them our OCB-related Ginger Armbrust, Tony Busalacchi, Tony Michaels, Bob Weller, and George Luther!

DECEMBER 5: Global Carbon Project releases updated global carbon budget and carbon trend analyses to include 2010

NOVEMBER 28: Release of “Ocean Under Stress,” which describes potential impacts of warming, acidification, and deoxygenation on the world's oceans, in preparation for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Seventeenth session of the Conference of the Parties (COP17)

NOVEMBER 18: Release of IPCC Report Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (SREX)

NOVEMBER 15: NOAA Ocean Acidification funding opportunity announced: LOI deadline (LOIs required) is Dec. 15, 2011, Full proposal deadline: January 30, 2012

NOVEMBER 2: IMBER launches its new website

OCTOBER 18: OCB researcher Chris Sabine named new director of NOAA/PMEL

OCTOBER 18: Prepublication copy of NRC report Assessing Requirements for Sustained Ocean Color Research and Operations now available

OCTOBER 7: 2011 U.S. Carbon Cycle Science Plan released

 

Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge the support of the National Science Foundation, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

nsf nasa noaa

 

Featured Science

OCB NEWS

APRIL 2012

MARCH 2012

FEBRUARY 2012

  • OCB joins with U.S. CLIVAR to support two joint working groups:

    1) Oceanic carbon uptake in the CMIP5 models (Annalisa Bracco, Curtis Deutsch, Taka Ito)

    2) Heat and Carbon Uptake by the Southern Ocean (Joellen Russell, Igor Kamenkovich)

  • The OCB SSC, chaired by Kendra Daly (USF), has elected Craig Carlson (UCSB) as the new vice-chair. Congratulations Craig!

JANUARY 2012

Happy New Year! Put the 2012 OCB Summer Workshop on your calendars now - July 16-19, 2012 (Woods Hole, MA). This year's meeting will include sessions on:

  • Integrating measurements across multiple time and space scales
  • Land-ocean transport and linkages with global change
  • Multiple stressors in marine ecosystems
  • Ocean biogeochemistry from satellite data
  • New observations from an Arctic Ocean in rapid transition