Science Activities

Each SCOR group has assigned to it a Reporter from the SCOR Executive Committee. The Reporter is responsible to serve as a liaison between the activity and the SCOR Executive Committee and to report on the activity at SCOR annual meetings. The specific duties of the Reporters can be found here.

Working Groups
Working groups are usually formed of not more than 10 members to deliberate on a narrowly focused topic and develop a publication for the primary scientific literature. Their work is intended to be completed in 4 years or less. SCOR has sponsored—alone or with other organizations—126 working groups, including the current ones.

Large-Scale Ocean Research Projects
Beginning with the International Indian Ocean Expedition in the early 1960s, SCOR has been instrumental in the planning and coordination of several large-scale ocean research projects. SCOR provides a mechanism to bring together international scientists for this purpose. In recent years, SCOR has been joined by the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) and Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) in promoting large-scale ocean research projects. The international versions of the Global Ocean Ecosystem Dynamics project, the Joint Global Ocean Flux Study, the Tropical Ocean-Global Atmosphere project, the World Ocean Circulation Experiment, and the Global Ecology and Oceanography of Harmful Algal Blooms program resulted from SCOR working groups or other subsidiary groups.

SCOR Ocean Carbon Activities
SCOR and IOC have co-sponsored activities related to the ocean's role in global climate change since 1979, when the first Committee on Climate Change and the Ocean (CCCO) was formed with Roger Revelle as its chairman. In 1984, the CCCO formed a CO₂ Advisory Panel. This was later transformed into a JGOFS-CCCO group and, subsequently, a JGOFS-IOC group. With the completion of JGOFS, this cooperative activity was reformed as the SCOR-IOC Advisory Panel on Ocean Carbon Dioxide. SCOR and IOC are now cooperating in activities related to ocean carbon observations through the International Ocean Carbon Coordination Project (IOCCP).

SCOR and IOC also worked together to convene a symposium on The Ocean in a High-CO₂ World to bring together ocean scientists for an interdisciplinary examination of science related to the ocean in the context of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations, including potential effectiveness, risks, and unknowns of activities designed to sequester atmospheric carbon dioxide in the ocean. SCOR and IOC are discussing the possibility of convening a regular series of symposia on this topic, designed to document progress in this area of science and to contribute to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) process.

The Surface Ocean - Lower Atmosphere Study (SOLAS) and Integrated Marine Biogeochemistry and Ecosystem Research (IMBER) project are forming a scientific steering group that will manage its joint ocean carbon research activities. This group will work closely with the IOCCP to ensure that there is good coordination between ocean carbon research and observations worldwide.

SCOR will cooperate with IGBP on a new IGBP Fast-Track Initiative on Atmospheric CO₂ and Ocean Biogeochemistry: Modern Observations and Past Experiences. This activity will be led by the IGBP PAGES project and will focus on understanding how we can predict future impacts of ocean acidification from ocean responses to past periods of high atmospheric CO₂.

Other Activities

SCOR sponsors several other activities that promote the advance of international ocean sciences, either alone or in cooperation with other organizations.

The SCOR Panel on New Technologies for Observing Marine Life was set up in 2004 to provide advice to the Census of Marine Life on observing technologies.

SCAR-SCOR Group of Experts on Oceanography--The overarching purpose of this group is to bring together ocean scientists from different disciplines who work in the Southern Ocean, to encourage an inter-disciplinary approach to Southern Ocean observations, modelling and research, recognizing the inter- dependence of physical, chemical and biological processes in the ocean at present and in the past.

SCOR Project-Coordination Activities--In December 2003, SCOR and IGBP co-sponsored a meeting on data management for international marine research projects. This meeting was funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and hosted by the British Oceanographic Data Centre in Liverpool, UK. The purpose of the meeting was to assemble scientists and data managers from marine research projects of SCOR, IGBP, and other organizations to discuss common opportunities and challenges in project data management. A specific goal was to help newly developing projects to determine what elements should be contained in their data management policies, and to recommend elements that all projects should include in their data policies, to make it easier for scientists to share data among projects. The report of the meeting can be found at www.jhu.edu/scor/DataMgmt.htm.

In September 2004, SCOR sponsored a second meeting among ocean research projects with support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. This meeting was designed to bring together representatives of the major international ocean research and observation projects and programs to discuss common opportunities, issues and problems. The meeting agenda included several specific topics determined in advance to be important inter-project issues, including data management; interactions of projects with the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS); project coordination in the area of Southern Ocean research (including possible links to SCAR) and participation in the International Polar Year; project needs for time-series stations; and future project contributions to global environmental assessments. The report of the meeting can be found at http://www.jhu.edu/scor/ProjCoord.htm.

Capacity-Building Activities
SCOR promotes the enhancement of scientific capacity in developing countries and those with economies in transition by ensuring that every SCOR working group and other activity includes scientists from such countries. SCOR also administers a grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation to provide travel support to scientists from such countries to attend scientific meetings, participates with the Partnership for Observation of the Global Oceans (POGO) in supporting a program of visiting fellowships for oceanographic observations, and is developing an activity to promote regional graduate schools of oceanography and marine environmental sciences.

Affiliated Programs
In 1995, SCOR developed a process for affiliation of research programs and long-term study committees with SCOR. SCOR does not provide financial support to these programs, but affiliation may increase a program's international visibility and access to scientists in SCOR member nations, as well as providing the benefit of SCOR advice on program committees and activities. Each affiliated program is reviewed for continued affiliation at each SCOR General Meeting. Orginally, each affiliation was to be ended automatically after 10 years, but SCOR eliminated the sunsets on affiliations in 2004, as it was obvious that most projects desired to continue their affiliations and SCOR receives continuing benefits from the affiliations.

Questions or Comments?
Please contact SCOR.