From September 23 through 27, Professor Nicholas Bates, senior scientist at BIOS and Dr. Ludger Mintrop, owner of Marianda—a company in Kiel, Germany that specializes in instruments for marine chemistry analysis—co-hosted a first-of-its-kind professional development course in Bermuda.

In 2003 the field of Arctic research was significantly advanced by the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for World Ocean and Polar Regions Studies between NOAA and the Russian Academy of Sciences. This groundbreaking agreement paved the way for a new level of collaboration between these two countries in their ongoing efforts to understand the dynamics of the Arctic sea region. The Russian-American Long-term Census of the Arctic (RUSALCA) program was the first research program initiated under this MOU, aimed at studying the ocean carbon cycle and the impacts of ocean acidification on the marine environment in the rapidly changing Arctic Ocean.

About every 18 months since 2010, Becky Garley, 34, has packed a bag for 5 to 7 weeks of shipboard living in the Arctic or Southern Ocean. As a research specialist at BIOS she works with faculty member and marine chemist Nick Bates to collect and analyze water samples for their work on the ocean carbon cycle. They look specifically at dissolved inorganic carbon and total alkalinity (important to measure the ocean’s ability to neutralize acidic pollution). Their work informs broader, global research into the ocean carbon system and the effects of climate change on the ocean.

Sustained ocean observations provide the foundation for much of the chemical and physical oceanographic research that’s taking place around the world. Such observations, collected over the years and sometimes decades, give scientists insight into global cycles, regional variability and seasonal trends, and long-term changes in ocean chemistry.