2012 Ocean Sciences Meeting

Last February, 11 BIOS scientists participated in the 2012 Ocean Sciences Meeting in Salt Lake City, Utah as either the leads or co-authors of 10 talks and 13 posters. A biennial conference held jointly by The Oceanography Society (TOS), the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO) and the American Geophysical Union (AGU), this year’s Ocean Sciences Meeting attracted more than 4,000 scientists, managers and educators from around the globe.

Dr. Rodney Johnson, BIOS Assistant Research Scientist and Co–Principal Investigator for the BATS (Bermuda Atlantic Time-series Study) and Hydrostation ‘S’ projects, commented that this year’s meeting seemed more focused on physical oceanography than in previous years. He also noted that scientists seem to be coming together on their understanding of what he calls “the reality of ocean eddies”: primarily, that they are a key regulation factor in both coastal and open ocean processes.

Over the last 15+ years that he’s been attending Ocean Sciences meetings, Dr. Michael Lomas, BIOS Senior Scientist and Principal Investigator of the Phytoplankton Ecology Lab, has seen an “increasing trend [toward embracing] the human dimension” of the science. As a result, the meetings are offering more presentations about local/traditional knowledge of marine resources, as well as “applied science” talks that translate research findings into meaningful products and results for non-scientists.

The research of BIOS scientists spanned chemical, physical, and biological oceanography topics in geographic regions as diverse as the Sargasso Sea, Bering Sea, NE Pacific, North Atlantic, and the continental shelf off Alaska.