Co-Convenors: Changkyu Lee (Korea) and Mark Wells (USA)

Invited Speaker:
Sanae Chiba (JAMSTEC, Japan)
William Peterson (Hatfield Marine Science Center, NMFS, USA)

Harmful algal blooms reached historic levels along coastlines of the eastern Pacific in 2011, but similar blooms were minimal to non-existent in Japan, Korea and Russia. The situation was largely reversed in 2007, and this disparity between these years offers a unique opportunity to compare and contrast the basic environmental parameters and HAB dynamics during these regimes. Combining these observations with a broader overview of the basin-scale physical dynamics during this time frame would provide new insights to the factors enhancing these blooms. The workshop foundation will be the pre-submission of available data from member countries, including but not limited to: HAB species presence and abundance, time of year, temperature range, salinity range, water clarity, wind, river flow (flooding), and upwelling indices. Workshop participants will review and discuss the trends and patterns in these data over the first day, and integrate them with information on the basinscale physical dynamics. Participants will develop a detailed outline for manuscript preparation during the second day, with agreed writing assignments and draft submission deadlines. The manuscript will be targeted for the appropriate international journal decided upon by participants.