Read all about OCB’s activities, find jobs, postdocs, student opps, funding ops, and keep up with news from across the community and partner programs every month.
Read all about OCB’s activities, find jobs, postdocs, student opps, funding ops, and keep up with news from across the community and partner programs every month.
We are currently seeking nominations for members of a newly established OCSIF topical subcommittee of the OCB SSC – the Ocean Carbonate System Intercomparison Forum (OCSIF). This subcommittee has its origins in the OCB OCSIF working group focused on identifying and addressing uncertainties in the seawater carbonate system and increasing measurement inter-comparability, with goals of advocating for and sparking collaborations to address these issues and providing guidance for data reporting and documentation while fostering engagement across career stages and global participation. We aim to include a range of expertise and career stages, including very early career scientists (0-4 years since PhD). Non-US applicants are encouraged to apply, as we will aim to include at least 1-2 non-US members on the subcommittee at all times. The subcommittee will include up to 15 members. We are seeking a range of expertise pertaining to the ocean carbonate system, including:
Please submit your nominations to the OCB Project Office using this nomination form by March 27, 2026 (extended). Self-nominations are welcome and encouraged!
OCB subcommittee membership terms are typically ~2-4 years, but a detailed charge and terms of reference for this new subcommittee will be established by its inaugural members. The inaugural co-chairs of this subcommittee will be Ryan Woosley (MIT) and Katelyn Schockman (U Miami/NOAA). The OCB Project Office will oversee the nomination and election process. Discussion of nominees and scoring via electronic ballot will be carried out by a small committee of subject matter experts, including Ryan and Katelyn.
New publication from the Operational Phytoplankton Observations (OPO) Working Group!
Citation: Clayton, S., Neeley, A., Poulton, N., et al., (2026) Operational Phytoplankton Observations Best Practices: a guide for using imaging technologies for routine monitoring of phytoplankton communities. Version 1.0.0. Woods Hole, MA, Ocean Carbon and Biogeochemistry Program, Operational Phytoplankton Observations Working Group, 96pp. DOI: https://doi.org/10.25607/OBP-2059
Learn more about this OCB working group
Join us for the first Metabarcoding Intercal webinar on April 9 at 12PM ET / 9AM PT to hear from
Dr. Felix Milke, University of Oldenburg, Biogeography of Microbial Cohorts in the Global Oceans
Dr. Mahwash Jamy, Uppsala University, Opportunities and Challenges in Long‑Read Metabarcoding for Ecology and Evolution
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This new activity has just launched and there are multiple opportunities to get involved.
→Sign up and nominate speakers for the bi-monthly webinar series. Self-nominations are encouraged.
→Apply to join the working group. Participants will be expected to prepare and analyze samples for 16S or 18S sequences and attend a synthesis meeting either in-person or virtually. Detailed protocols and workflows are expected to be made publicly available.
Input requested for COASTAL (essentially 100km of shoreline – including inland estuarine areas) Gap Analysis Discussion Groups. This is best effort voluntary work through end of 2026. Anyone can participate, but it is being coordinated by COAST-VC for CEOS.
We invite subject matter experts to give input to the 2026 CEOS-wide Coastal Gap Analysis activity. Now is your chance to tell us your top 2 preferred Discussion Groups (out of 4) for the FIRST phase of the Gap Analysis. This first phase is expected to continue through July and we will try to honor your top selections. We hope to shuffle groups for a second phase running September – November 2026 (perhaps using different themes). We are also looking for 4 group coordinators (someone responsible for scheduling group meetings).
Completing this form is voluntary. You can revise your answers on the form. You can use the same link to submit the form entering a new email address. Information collected will ONLY be used to assign you to a subgroup and invite you to future coastal gap analysis meetings in 2026.
The initial 4 subgroups – selected following discussion at our January meetings – will meet on your own. We are looking for Leaders to schedule the meetings and sharing a progress report with COAST-VC co-leads- you can volunteer in the form. Leaders will be identified for each subgroup and they will reach out to assigned subject matter experts next week with invitations for meetings and to share foundational information to guide progress.
Please respond in this form by March 9, 12:00 UTC. Do not worry if you fail to submit the form by the deadline – you will simply be assigned to a subgroup, based upon openings – this is just a way to try to give you a voice in the assignment.
There is a strong possibility that subgroups will be shuffled midway through the year, so if you are unimpressed by your initial subgroup assignment, please contribute and just hang in there for the shuffle.
Once again we sincerely appreciate your interest and we recognize you will do your best to contribute to the Coastal Gap Analysis when and where you can. Please let me know immediately if you run into any problems with the form or you have any questions about the details outlined in the form.
Please share this with your colleagues.
Merrie Beth Neely, Ph.D., PMP
BOS NOAA, Global Science and Technology Contractor in support of NOAA/NESDIS
The Global Ocean Biogeochemistry Array (GO-BGC) program will be hosting a Float Data workshop on August 17-21, 2026 at the University of Washington, Seattle, USA. The workshop will be a Hack-a-thon type workshop, where small groups will pursue a scientific question/objective using BGC-Argo data. This workshop will include a combination of an overview of BGC-Argo and the GO-BGC program, lectures, working (coding) with float data with your group, and a tour of the float lab at UW. Participants are expected to be familiar with how to access and utilize BGC-Argo data prior to the workshop, and to have programming experience.
To RSVP for this workshop, please fill out this form here. Note, this is not a registration, but a form to gauge interest from the community. A registration form will be sent out in the next few months.
A new OCB activity is underway: SedMIP: Sediment Biogeochemistry Model Intercomparison Project. Learn more and participate in this collaborative effort to systematically evaluate and improve benthic biogeochemical models:
Attend the Town Hall at OSM26: TH23A: Advancing Benthic Modeling: Introducing SedBGC_MIP, a Community-Driven Model Intercomparison Initiative
TUESDAY, February 24, 12:45-1:45p GMT in Hall3. The Abyss – SEC
–> Sign up for updates
–>give a webinar talk
–>take a short survey to help inform this activity.
With great sadness, we share the news that Frank J. Millero passed away on December 25, 2025, at the age of 86. Frank was a titan and pioneer of marine chemistry whose foundational work on the physical chemistry of natural waters reshaped our understanding of the ocean, particularly in the areas of carbon and trace metal cycling. After earning his Bachelor’s degree from Ohio State University (1961), Master’s degree and Ph.D. from the Carnegie Institute of Technology (1964 and 1965, respectively), he conducted a short stint in industry studying automobile pollution and catalytic efficiency. He joined the faculty at the University of Miami’s Marine Laboratory (now called the Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science) in 1966 and remained there until his retirement in 2015. His early work in the 1960s and 70s refined and improved the definition and measurement of salinity, resulting in the development of the practical salinity scale (1978), used universally by every oceanographer. He famously hated the use of PSU as a unit for salinity (practical salinity is unitless), and as editor-in-chief of Marine Chemistry (1992 – 2017), he maintained a policy that any paper mentioning PSU would be rejected without review. Along with several colleagues, that work culminated with the thermodynamic equation of state 2010 (TEOS-10) and the development of reference and absolute salinities (which do have units). His early work on the speed of sound in seawater is still used daily to determine water depth.
Frank is perhaps most known for his work on the carbonate system and ocean acidification. He dedicated significant efforts to understanding the partitioning of the carbonate species in seawater through measurements of the apparent dissociation constants, providing several formulations that are widely used in the carbon cycling community. He wrote QuickBASIC proto versions of what some of his students would later develop into the widely adopted CO2sys program for carbon dioxide (CO2) system calculations. He was passionate about conducting science through direct observations and field work, and always provided ample opportunities for students to go to sea, which was an unofficial requirement for all his students before they graduated. He published one of the first papers (1979) using direct observations to demonstrate that the CO2 of the oceans was indeed increasing due to uptake of fossil fuel emissions as had been hypothesized. He continued studying this uptake and its impacts (such as ocean acidification) for the remainder of his career.
He received numerous honors and awards, but he once said his proudest accomplishments were his students when they published work done in his lab. Summarizing his amazing 50+ year career and all of the ways his work continues to touch and influence the fields of carbon chemistry and oceanography in general would be impossible. For those who knew him, he was not only a great scientist but a dedicated mentor and a kind and generous man. He always had a story to tell, and often it was on his office balcony overlooking Biscayne Bay with a Corona in hand. He will be sorely missed.
We are collecting memories and stories of Frank to share with his wife Judy and family. Please send any you wish to share to Dennis Hansell (dhansell@miami.edu) and Ryan Woosley (rwoosley@mit.edu)
Photo credit Annual Review of Marine Science (Millero, F.J., 2015) https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-marine-010814-015946
OCB is excited to welcome the following new members to the Scientific Steering Committee:
Angela Knapp (TAMU) – marine biochemistry, nitrogen fixation, dissolved organic nutrients, marine nitrogen stable isotope geochemistry
Elaine Luo (UNC Charlotte) – microbial ecology, computational biology, metagenomics
David Harning (CU Boulder) – paleoclimatology, geochemistry, carbon burial, Arctic climate change, carbon dioxide removal
Hope Ianiri (USGS, early career member) – marine organic carbon and nitrogen cycles, long-term carbon storage in marine environments
The SSC has also elected Jessica Luo (NOAA/GFDL) as its next vice chair, and Randie Bundy (UW) has rotated into the SSC Chair position.
We extend our sincere gratitude to outgoing SSC members P. Dreux Chappell (USF, SSC Chair from 2025-2026), David “Roo” Nicholson (WHOI), Anela Choy (SIO), and Yige Zhang (formerly TAMU, now at Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, CAS).
The BECS WG paper Elucidating the Role of Marine Benthic Carbon in a Changing World was just published in Global Biogeochemical Cycles.
Schultz, C., Luo, J. Y., Brady, D. C., Fulweiler, R. W., Long, M. H., Petrik, C. M., et al. (2025). Elucidating the role of marine benthic carbon in a changing world. Global Biogeochemical Cycles, 39, e2025GB008643.
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Funding for the Ocean Carbon & Biogeochemistry Project Office is provided by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The OCB Project Office is housed at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.