Issue 169: March 2002: Ocean of Odyssey Conference Report
SANCOR Newsletter Issue #169: March 2002
Report on attendance of the 2001: An Ocean Odyssey Conference and the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR) 35th Executive Committee Meeting, Mar Del Plata, Argentina
Alan Aldrin Meyer
University of Cape Town
Background to the Report
At the beginning of June 2001 Prof. Vere Shannon asked me if I would be interested in attending both the joint assemblies of the International Association for the Physical Sciences of the Oceans (IAPSO) and International Association for Biological Oceanography (IABO), and the SCOR Executive meeting in Argentina as a capacity development delegate of the South African SCOR committee. I gladly accepted this offer. At the SA National SCOR meeting held just before my departure to Argentina it was requested that I should write a report on my experiences at the conference and SCOR Executive meeting. Dr. Beckley, a member of the SA SCOR committee, also suggested that this report should be published in the SANCOR Newsletter.
I have therefore decided to write this report in the form of a newsletter article. Furthermore, I took myself to task to produce a representative report on the conference and meeting. I soon discovered, however, that such a task would be impossible, considering that the conference was a large-scale event. I had to be selective in what sessions I wanted to attend and what discussions to get involved. I therefore caution the reader that what I present here is what I believe impressed me the most during my ten days in Argentina.
The Conference
In spite of the 11 September 2001 incident in New York City, and the belief that many American and European oceanographers would decide not to attend the conference, 430 of the 500 scientists that indicated that they would attend, registered. There was, however, some reshuffling of sessions and some afternoon sessions were cancelled because of non-attendance of presenters.
The opening ceremony was held on the 21 October 2001, at which the mayor of the city of Mar Del Plata, the presidents of IUGG, IABO and IAPSO presented welcoming speeches. The eminent Professor Carl Wunsch of MIT was then introduced by the President of IAPSO, Professor Paola Malanotte-Rizzoli, to give the President Invited Lecture. The lecture was entitled "The Ocean Circulation: the last 50 years and the next 50 years. Is the end in sight?" What impressed me the most of this lecture was the "next 50 years. Is the end in sight?" part, and which I would like to briefly mention here.
The most important point in this lecture was that ocean sciences are moving towards global ocean prediction. Just as the weather bureau can forecast weather events, an ocean bureau will in the future forecast ocean events. Here he stressed the importance of modelling and observations of the global ocean from space. He described that in the future expeditions with research vessels will became something of the past. Ship observations will be replaced by floats, like the Argo devices, that are capable of taking oceanographic measurements with depth and along the water column, and send their information via satellite to terrestrial data collection centres. The information obtained from floats will aid in making models more realistic. He predicts that global ocean modelling and prediction will become the priority of large institutes and agencies linked to governments, and that academics will focus more on paleoceanography and process scale oceanography. Prof. Wunsch, furthermore, described the 21st century as the era of biology.
He envisions that oceanographers will depend on sea animals and bio-engineered sea life to help in ocean exploration. He illustrated his point about bio-engineered sea life by presenting an overhead drawn by his own hand of a whale, genetically crossed with an electrical eel, which he called the re-invention of the "wh-eel". There were some laughs from the audience. I, however, took the presentation seriously, and worthwhile mentioning here. We are at the dawn of a new era, where we have the knowledge to clone organisms, including ourselves, and have the technology to genetically engineer organisms. Oceanographers, especially the young scientists, should be aware of scientific developments in other disciplines and should incorporate them into our thinking.
The last point worthwhile mentioning about this opening lecture is a question from the audience about further developments in satellite technology for observation of the global ocean. Prof. Wunsch answered that he does not think any new satellite technology will be produced soon, because we have exhausted the electromagnetic spectrum. He however encouraged the oceanographic community to be more imaginative in its approach to studying the ocean. The opening lecture had by far the greatest influence on me of everything that was presented at the conference. During the five days of the conference many sessions were attended and many behind the scene discussions were held. The discussion in which I indulged was about a possible oceanographic research project on the influence of the Agulhas Current on
variability of southern African climate, and whether the "pulsing" of the current is related to Agulhas Ring shedding. This work was discussed with scientists from Germany and USA.
These behind the scene discussions give international conferences the "buzz" that I believe is vital for the inspiration of the "scientific imagination".and future oceanographic research. My overall feeling was that Carl Wunsch in his opening lecture might not have been far from the truth in his view of the near future. Global ocean prediction did not seem such a far fetched ideal at the end of the conference. I am now immediately wondering whether planetary modelling and prediction will be the next goal in the evolution of earth sciences. as oceanographers. At this meeting it was suggested to set up a web page where graduate students and young scientists interested in oceanography could discuss current trends in oceanography, as well as to locate capacity building funds for further studies, training, travelling to conferences, and starting up of projects. This was well received by most people present, but also by Dr. John Gould, director of WOCE and CLIVAR, Prof. Malanotte-Rizzoli of IAPSO and Dr. Julie Hall secretary of SCOR. I encourage any graduate students and young scientists that are interested in this project to contact me at ameyer@physci.uct.ac.za.
I think that it was useful, at least for me as a scientist, to attend the SCOR meeting in conjunction with a science conference. I feel that I have gained from both the meeting and conference in very different ways, but it was the science conference that excited me the most.
Conclusion
At the students meeting, I had a slip of the tongue and said that those who speak about "capacity building" should put action where their mouths are. I can truly say that the SA SCOR committee did put action where its mouth is. I feel that my capacity as a young scientist was increased by my 10 days in Argentina. Through the introductions that I received from Prof. Lutjeharms, Shannon and Field (all members of SA SCOR) I have been able to arrange international co-operation for a research project, had the opportunity to utter my concerns about developing scientists/students in developing countries and was heard by organisations like CLIVAR, IAPSO and SCOR and other individuals, had the opportunity to see great scientists in action and had the opportunity to represent my country at an international event. I want to thank the SA National SCOR committee for the award that made this experience possible.
