Convenors: David L. Mackas (Institute of Ocean Sciences, Fisheries and Oceans Canada) and Hans Verheye (Marine and Coastal Management, DEAT, South Africa)

Evidence for climate-correlated variability of various components of marine ecosystems has accumulated rapidly over the past two decades. There is a growing recognition of the societal need to learn how climate and ocean environmental and biotic responses are linked, and the likely amplitude and steepness of future changes. Demographic characteristics of marine zooplankton make them especially suitable for examining variability at interannual to decadal time scales. Because zooplankton are rarely fished, their changes in abundance can greatly enhance our collective ability to evaluate the importance of and interaction between 'physical environment', 'food web', and 'fishery harvest' as causal mechanisms driving ecosystem level changes. A number of valuable within-region analyses of zooplankton time series have been published in the past decade, covering a variety of modes of variability including changes in total biomass, changes in size structure and species composition, changes in spatial distribution, and changes in phenology. But because most zooplankton time series are relatively short compared to the time scales of interest, the statistical power of individual local analyses is relatively low. Between-region and between-variable comparisons are needed, and are the mandate of SCOR's Working Group 125 on “Global comparison of zooplankton time series”. This workshop will feature several presentations and discussion by WG 125 members, but contributions from other investigators are also welcome.

We expect ~15 WG 125 members, producing 8-10 papers on topics such as “typical amplitudes and time scales of variability in different regions”, “size spectrum”, “community composition & zoogeographic shifts”, “phenologic shifts”, “statistical methods and choices”, “relation to climate indices”, “relation to fishery time series”. We anticipate an additional 10-15 contributed papers from non-WG 125 authors.

Convenors: Part (a) Anne Hollowed (Alaska Fisheries Science Center, National Marine Fisheries Service, USA), Richard Beamish (Pacific Biological Station, Fisheries and Oceans Canada), Michael Schirripa (Northwest Fisheries Science Center, National Marine Fisheries Service, USA); Part (b) Thomas A. Okey (Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre, Canada)

The goal of the combined workshop will be to facilitate a coordinated international research effort to forecast climate change impacts on the distribution and production of the world’s major fisheries, and on the biological communities in which these fisheries are embedded. The specific objectives of the workshop are: (1) to review the activities of existing programs within each nation, (2) to examine the evidence for climate impacts on production of commercial fish species and other marine life, (3) to discuss the feasibility of developing medium-term to long-term forecasts of climate impacts, (4) to discuss possible responses of commercial fisheries, human communities, and governments to climate-driven changes in marine life, and (5) to identify common or standard approaches to forecasting climate change impacts on commercial species and marine communities and ecosystems.

Workshop attendees will identify climate scenarios for use in forecasting and then discuss development of forecasting tools for use in predicting climate impacts on commercial fish production and broader marine ecosystems. The workshop will provide a forum for discussion of four components needed to complete the forecasts in a timely and coordinated fashion including: IPCC scenarios, predictions of oceanographic impacts, modeling approaches, and regional scenarios for natural resource use and enhancement. The ecosystem component of the workshop will survey a wide variety of approaches including vulnerability assessments for informing location choices for ecosystem modeling efforts and management prioritization, trophodynamic fishery ecosystem modeling (i.e. Ecopath with Ecosim), climate envelope modeling, statistical approaches, and three dimensional high-resolution biogeochemical ecosystem modeling (i.e. CCC-NEMURO).

Convenors: Ed Harrison (Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, NOAA/PMEL, USA), Richard Lampitt (Southampton Oceanography Centre, UK) and Doug Wallace (IFM-GEOMAR, Germany)

Motivated by the need to understand and measure the ocean’s role for climate, the physical community has made great strides towards implementation of global and regional ocean observing systems both in-situ and space-borne. Despite the introduction, three decades ago, of space-borne sensors for ocean colour, the observing systems for ocean biological and chemical properties are significantly less advanced. The motivation for such systems is strong and growing, given the pressures of marine ecosystems and the ocean’s significance for carbon sources and sinks. The workshop will help to scope the prospects to allow similar progress concerning observation of biogeochemical properties in the oceans. The outcome of the workshop is intended to feed into a white paper to be presented at an international symposium, OCEANOBS09 (http://www.oceanobs09.net/), to be held in the fall of 2009. The issues to be addresses follow directly from the principles and practices of GEOSS (Global Earth Observation System of Systems). The 10 year Implementation Plan (adopted February 16, 2005) clearly states that GEOSS “...builds on and adds value to existing Earth observation systems by coordinating their efforts, addressing critical gaps, supporting their interoperability, sharing information, reaching a common understanding of user requirements and improving delivery of information to users.” GEO (Group on Earth Observations) includes 68 member countries, the European Commission, and 46 participating organizations working together to establish GEOSS. With these principles and needs in mind, we invite interest groups, existing observing networks, and individuals to exchange and share their visions for a global ocean observing system that addresses key biogeochemical properties of the marine realm.