Coordination and Data Management for Ocean Carbon Cycle Research

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ABSTRACTOCE-0510046Ocean biogeochemistry is a critical component of the Earth's climate system, regulating on time- scales of decades to millennia the atmospheric levels of key species such as carbon dioxide (CO2), dimethylsulfide (DMS) and nitrous oxide (N2O). The largest U.S. ocean biogeochemistry program, the Joint Global Ocean Flux Study (JGOFS), has ended yet individual field studies, time series programs and modeling efforts continue to study the ocean carbon cycle. In this post JGOFS era, self selected groups of principal investigators are moving ahead to tackle important questions related to the ocean carbon cycle, but they have lost, hopefully only temporarily, the many benefits that were enabled by coordinated planning, information exchange, principal investigator workshops and data management in JGOFS. Likewise, outreach to the next generation of ocean scientists and a broader audience has ceased beyond individual PI efforts.With support from this award, a group of scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) will address some of the most pressing coordination and data management issues over the short term, focusing in a one year proposal on three linked activities: a targeted data management component to improve the accessibility to ocean biogeochemical data from existing field and modeling programs; a scientific workshop on recent advances and future opportunities in ocean biogeochemistry observing system programs and NSF supported mid- sized process studies; and an education and outreach program to train a cohort of minority undergraduate and graduate students. This effort takes advantage of expertise and flexibility at WHOI to manage final data submission from U.S. JGOFS investigators and lend assistance to newer mid- size ocean carbon programs that do not have the advantage of a centralized data management interface. Also, as technology changes, there is a need to update our interface to these data sets with development of XML based database interface/portals on the web.Broader Impacts: The Coordination and Data Management Office (CDMO) that will be supported through this award is by design, not a primary research activity, but rather a group of activities that play a supporting role to the scientific community by enhancing opportunities for communication, meetings and open data exchange. The CDMO also supports education and outreach activities, and in this project period, seeks to introduce underrepresented groups to ocean sciences. In particular, the CDMO will host a scientific workshop on recent advances and future opportunities in ocean carbon research. To enhance education and outreach activities, 8 MS PHD'S (Minorities Striving and Pursuing Higher Degrees of Success in Earth System Science) students will be invited for a one-week visit to Woods Hole. The three main components of the visit include participation in the Ocean Carbon workshop, a one-day field trip on the R/V Tioga and a one-day visit to the NOAA NMFS Northeast Fisheries Science Center. Exposing these students to science lectures, lab visits and fieldwork will provide a great introduction to ocean research and should have a lasting impact on this group at a point in their lives when they are making critical education and career choices.