Until further notice, OCB will not be able to consider bulk travel support requests.
We will post an announcement if this changes.
Until further notice, OCB will not be able to consider bulk travel support requests.
We will post an announcement if this changes.
OCB2025 Plenary Sessions
Constraining the dark ocean carbon cycle: Implications for ocean carbon budgets? (Co-chairs: Anne Dekas, Anela Choy, Jeff Bowman, Randie Bundy)
Rivers to coasts: Biogeochemical linkages and environmental resilience (joint with North American Carbon Program) (Co-chairs: Fei Da, Kanchan Maiti, Shaily Rahman, Libby Larson, David Butman)
Rapidly changing systems (Co-chairs: Kristen Krumhardt, Rachel Stanley, Melissa Melendez)
Bridging scales in the ocean carbon cycle (Co-chairs: Zachary Erickson, Tim DeVries, Roo Nicholson, Daniel Whitt, Dreux Chappell)
The Leaky Deltas OCB workshop was held 17-20 March 2025 at Louisiana State University, in Baton Rouge, USA, which is situated within the Mississippi River delta. We brought together 57 members of the research community who study river deltas in the context of the global carbon cycle. The goal of the workshop was to create a community consensus on the state of delta carbon cycle science, identify critical knowledge gaps, and brainstorm opportunities and priorities for future research efforts. Participants ranged in career stage from graduate student to senior scientist, and from disciplines ranging from biogeochemistry to geomorphology, river scientists to oceanographers; and scientists using a variety of methodological approaches.
The workshop included five oral sessions, four breakout sessions, numerous opportunities for discussion over meals and coffee breaks, a trip to the LSU Center for River Studies, and a workshop dinner. The breakout sessions were formatted to encourage discussion among interdisciplinary groups of scientists at different career stages. During breakout session 1, participants were randomly assigned to groups that spanned career stages and expertise. This session was aimed at identifying grand challenges in delta carbon cycle science. Breakout session 2 had a disciplinary focus, where we broke out into groups of biogeochemistry, geomorphology, modeling, and ecosystems. Breakout session 3 was broken out into groups based on physical domains of the delta: river, wetlands, subaqueous delta, shelf, and continental slope. A highlight of day three was a field trip to the LSU Center for River Studies, where workshop participants were guided on a tour of the historical changes of the Mississippi River Delta, as well as the large-scale physical model of the delta. On the fourth and final day of the workshop, we had short break-out sessions and reconvened as a whole to synthesize ideas and circle back to the workshop objectives.
In summary, the workshop resulted in a consensus on the key knowledge gaps and research grand challenges, which included constraining the composition of organic matter, the timescales of geomorphic processes, biogeochemical reaction rates, impacts of human perturbations and extreme events, and challenges in monitoring deltaic processes. Workshop participants now have the task of writing a position paper that summarizes these grand research challenges, identifies the data needed to address these challenges, and recommends a framework and directions for future research. One outcome of the workshop included the structure and organization for this paper. The early career workshop participants will also lead an early-career-led perspective paper that discusses ideas for integrating new technologies and methodologies to address these grand challenges and identifies future challenges for the delta science community.
Ombres, E., H. Benway, K. Bisson, A. Larkin, L. Perotti, L. Wright-Fairbanks (eds.) (2024). Connecting Observations to Models: Biogeochemical Observing and Modeling Workshop, 2024 Summary Report and Suggested Steps Forward. Published Date: 2024 Series: NOAA technical memorandum OAR-OAP ; 6, DOI: https://doi.org/10.25923/wpdj-ja69
The NASA Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) Project and Ocean Carbon & Biogeochemistry (OCB) Program are hosting a second PACE Data Hackweek. This is a one-week social coding event that will include a combination of lectures, tutorials, and project work (data processing and analysis) that will kick-start research using the Earth science data streams generated by the OCI, SPEXone, and HARP2 instruments on board the observatory. Other projects that combine PACE data with other satellite data, such as from EarthCARE, TROPOMI, or SWOT are also encouraged. Participants will gain behind-the-scenes access to all aspects of PACE.
3-7 August 2025
University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC)
Learn more and apply by March 24
Welcome to the four new and one continuing SSC members!
Jason Graff (Oregon State Univ.) (2027) Biooptics, satellite remote sensing
Bror Jönsson (Univ. New Hampshire) (2027) – biological production across land-open ocean continuum, coastal ocean acidification, interactions between physical dynamics in the upper ocean and biological production, phytoplankton dynamics, and air-sea exchange, connectivity combining observations, analysis of large dataset, remote sensing and algorithm development
Jonathan Lauderdale (Massachusetts Inst. of Technology) (2027) – biogeochemistry, global carbon, nutrient, and trace metal cycles, past climates, physical oceanography, and processes occurring in high latitude regions such as the Southern Ocean.
Sarah Mincks (Univ. Alaska Fairbanks) (2027) benthic-pelagic coupling, marine organism-mediated carbon cycling
Shaily Rahman (Univ Colorado, Boulder) (2027, second term) – marine biogeochemistry and sedimentary processes
Thank you to Jeff Bowman (SIO), Susanne Craig (NASA GSFC), Tim DeVries (UCSB), and Zachary Erickson (NOAA PMEL) for your OCB work over the past three years!
Marine microeukaryotes are important players in ocean biogeochemistry, contributing to primary production and respiration. Their diversity and function is generally better understood in coastal regions, and harder to study in offshore locations, especially at depth. The CASHEW (Clio Atlantic Sectional Hoedown Ending at Woods Hole) expedition aimed to characterize microeukaryotic community composition and functionality along a gradient in the western North Atlantic Ocean.
Autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) Clio is a refrigerator sized robot that was used to collect biological material throughout the water column (see photo). This cruise was Clio’s first ocean transect, before this expedition Clio was in a testing phase. Clio was used to survey the upper 1 km of the water column. At one station, Clio was successfully sent 4.1 km down to the sea floor! We used the biomass collected to analyze metatranscriptomes and metaproteomes, which allowed us to examine the identity and metabolic profiles of marine microorganisms.
One of the most interesting aspects of this study was the similarities and differences in biological patterns based on whether transcripts or proteins were considered. While eukaryotic community breakdown was generally consistent between transcripts and proteins, there were more clear signs of heterotrophic taxa at depth in the protein fraction. Transcripts also indicated nitrate stress in continental margin waters with phosphate stress offshore, potentially a result of aerosol dust introducing iron and nitrogen. This study highlights the value of complementary omic datasets when reconstructing microbial community metabolism and showcases the degree of omic resolution possible with AUV efforts.
Authors
Natalie Cohen (University of Georgia Skidaway Institute of Oceanography)
Mak Saito (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)
New webinar series! Find out more 4D-BGC group website: https://4d-bgc.github.io
Past: Webinar #1 on November 26 at 0600 EST/1200 CET
Title: Advancements in Biogeophysical 4D reconstructions: New methods development and exploitation of existing products for scientific investigations
Presenter: Dr. Bruno Buongiorno Nardelli Italian National Research Council
This presentation will address two key topics: the development of physically-informed neural network methods for the joint reconstruction of physical and biological variables in the Mediterranean Sea, and the analysis of existing data-driven 4D reconstructions of POC, combined with advanced dynamical diagnostics, to uncover the interannual variability of organic carbon export in the global ocean. The first part will introduce the approach tested in the European Space Agency’s 4DMED-Sea project, while the second will focus on research conducted within the H2020 AtlantEco project.
Webinar Series Information: The 4D-BGC Working Group seeks to enhance access and utility of Biogeochemical (BGC) Argo observations through four-dimensional (4D) data products. These advanced data products aim to refine our understanding of ocean biogeochemistry, improve biogeochemical models and reanalysis products, and provide valuable insights for policy-making. The goal of this webinar series is to introduce new and in-development BGC data products, review techniques used to develop data products from in situ observations, and to explore ways in which 4D-BGC products are leveraged to answer scientific questions.
This event will highlight, in parallel, the quantitative aspects of Blue Carbon (e.g., their roles in NDCs) as well as the more qualitative aspects of Blue Carbon (e.g., cultural ecosystem services). Specifically, this event will address the ways in which blue carbon has been and can be further included in GG inventories and Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), through the 2025 NDC revision cycle. This event will highlight some of the tools the United States Government and Pacific partners have created to track and quantify blue carbon sinks, and to identify effective opportunities for conservation and restoration as well as emphasize the
intrinsic and cultural ecosystem services provided by blue carbon in the Pacific.
Copyright © 2025 - OCB Project Office, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, 266 Woods Hole Rd, MS #25, Woods Hole, MA 02543 USA Phone: 508-289-2838 • Fax: 508-457-2193 • Email: ocb_news@us-ocb.org
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.