2022 OCB Activity Solicitation

The Ocean Carbon and Biogeochemistry (OCB) Program is soliciting proposals for OCB activities that will take place or begin during the 2022 calendar year. Due to ongoing COVID-related uncertainties, in-person activities should include contingency plans in case delays or cancellations are necessary. We seek proposals for OCB-relevant workshops and activities as follows:

• Scoping workshops (~50-70 people) that bring together an appropriate body of expertise to foster discussions and build momentum within a specific OCB research area (previous OCB scoping workshops)
• Working groups (~8-12 members) to address targeted science goals/questions and develop products that benefit and engage the broader OCB community
• Synthesis activities to bring together existing data sets, model outputs, etc. to support and inform future research efforts
• Intercomparison activities to assess and build consensus on best practices (methodological, modeling, data analysis, etc.) for advancing OCB-relevant research
• Training activities (~30-50 participants plus instructors as needed) to build capacity in different areas of OCB research

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SAVE THE DATE: Virtual Community Meeting on pre-Arctic-COLORS Data Synthesis 

As NASA prepares for the Arctic-COLORS large-scale field campaign (https://arctic-colors.gsfc.nasa.gov/) in the near future, it is imperative to identify and characterize existing field data sets, modeling activities, and remote sensing capabilities within the coastal Arctic region that make up the Arctic-COLORS study domain.  To work towards accomplishing these aims, an open virtual Community Meeting is scheduled for October 18-20 (NEW DATES), 2021 between 1:00-4:00 pm EDT, as a pre-Arctic-COLORS data synthesis activity, sponsored by NASA and the OCB Project Office.  We invite stakeholders of the Arctic-COLORS study region to participate in this community meeting to discuss and share information on past, current, and planned field measurement, modeling, and remote sensing activities.  This virtual Community Meeting will bring together a multidisciplinary network of scientists conducting research on biogeochemical fluxes and exchanges along the Arctic aquatic continuum, from rivers to the coastal Arctic Ocean, to lay the groundwork for what data are available, where data are hosted, and who to involve in retrieving them.  This synthesis activity is an important stepping-stone toward the development of the Arctic-COLORS Implementation Plan and eventually the Arctic-COLORS field campaign itself.

Daily to Decadal Ecological Forecasting along North American Coastlines Workshop, a joint workshop between OCB and US CLIVAR will take place April 12-14, 2022. Currently the plan is to host the workshop in person in Woods Hole, MA with virtual participation options.

Coastal areas share unique intersections of large-scale climate variability and local hydrology, wetland, benthic and pelagic ecosystems, and anthropogenic pressures. Forecasting of harmful environmental conditions for planning, adaptation, and mitigation purposes is both complex and urgently needed. Recent syntheses have highlighted sources of predictability for ecological forecasting at seasonal to interannual timescales relevant to specific applications (e.g., fisheries), but they have also revealed challenges such as a disconnect between open ocean and coastal and estuarine forecasting communities as well as the significant challenge of data availability.

This workshop aims at bringing together climate scientists, biogeochemists, and global and regional modelers to:

1. Examine the connections between large-scale physical and biogeochemical processes and coastal processes, and identify sources of predictability at daily to decadal timescales that are specific to regions along US coastlines.
2. Assess the suitability and needs for observations that characterize key physical and biogeochemical ecosystem drivers, their interactions across scales, and their vulnerability to climate change and in different coastal regions.
3. Assess the major gaps in both understanding and modeling/observing capabilities that limit our ability to produce ecological forecasts at the scales needed for management along US coastlines, and identify potential avenues for accelerating progress.

Leading up to the workshop, the Scientific Organizing Committee will put together a blog to collect contributions by prospective participants on their specific research activities, results, and challenges. In addition, a webinar series will be organized to highlight needs by practitioners and end users. These activities will initiate interactions among participants and contribute to the definition of the major challenges.

More details on the workshop website. Registration and abstract submission will open this winter.

The OCB Phytoplankton Taxonomy Working Group has been working to establish standards and best practices for submitting taxonomic and morphological information for plankton and other particles from images collected by imaging instruments, such as the Imaging FlowCytobot (IFCB), FlowCAM and Underwater Vision Profiler (UVP), to data repositories (e.g., NASA’s SeaWiFS Bio-optical Archive and Storage System (SeaBASS) and the National Science Foundation’s Biological and Chemical Oceanography Data Management Office (BCO-DMO)). The working group, which combined expertise in phytoplankton ecology and taxonomy, data systems, and informatics, has just published a new Technical Manual entitled “Standards and practices for reporting plankton and other particle observations from images” that includes detailed guidance on the creation of a data table and the submission of the data, metadata and accompanying documentation to a repository.

Neeley, A., Beaulieu, S., Proctor, C., Cetinić, I., Futrelle, J., Soto Ramos, I., Sosik, H., Devred, E., Karp-Boss, L., Picheral, M., Poulton, N., Roesler, C., and Shepherd, A.. 2021: Standards and practices for reporting plankton and other particle observations from images. 38pp. DOI: 10.1575/1912/27377.

Dear Colleagues,

The US BioGeoSCAPES Planning Workshop, funded by the US Ocean Carbon & Biogeochemistry (OCB) program will take place November 2021 (rescheduled). The proposed BioGeoSCAPES program aims to improve our understanding of the functioning and regulation of ocean metabolism and its interactions with nutrient cycling, within the context of a hierarchical seascape perspective. This workshop will bring US scientists together to present data, discuss the opportunities and challenges involved in such a global scale effort, and to develop a plan for coordinating US interests and objectives with the international momentum towards this initiative.

The workshop will take place November 10-12, 2021 at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (hybrid format). We encourage applications from all career stages and experience levels ranging from senior graduate students to well-established researchers in all related fields. Based on the current COVID scenario and protocols, in-person participation will be limited to ~80 people, complemented by remote (virtual) participation. Efforts will be made to balance meeting composition in terms of disciplinary focus, career stage, diversity, and geographic location. Local accommodations and meals will be provided for in-person participants. OCB also has limited funds for travel support – if you require a travel stipend in order to attend the workshop, please indicate that in the application. Applications were due by 11:59 pm (EDT) on August 31, 2021.

Workshop Goals include:

• Identify key scientific questions for a coordinated microbial biogeochemistry program
• Discuss current technical capabilities and obstacles, including updates on current ‘omics intercalibration activities
• Develop a strategic plan for US contributions to BioGeoSCAPES

Applications will be evaluated by the workshop planning committee. Evaluation criteria will include applicants’ range of expertise; past contributions to advancing research in the fields of molecular omics, microbial ecology, inorganic and organic biogeochemistry, and biogeochemical modeling; and diversity (career stage, gender, institution, geographic, race, ethnicity, etc.).

For more information on this activity, please visit the workshop website. To apply to participate, please fill out the application here. For more information and updates about the international BioGeoSCAPES effort and other national meetings, see www.biogeoscapes.org. Non-US scientists interested in BioGeoSCAPES are encouraged to contact their national representatives for updates on program activities in their home countries.

Best wishes,
The US BioGeoSCAPES workshop organizing committee
Ben Twining (Bigelow Laboratory), Naomi Levine (Univ. Southern California), Adrian Marchetti (Univ. North Carolina, Chapel Hill), Mak Saito (Woods Hole Oceanographic Inst.), and Alyson Santoro (Univ. California, Santa Barbara)