Report Available
Arctic Ocean Observing System Report 2008
To view the report, please go to:
http://www.aosb.org/pdf/iAOOS2008_final.pdf
The 2008 version of the integrated Arctic Ocean Observing System report
is now available at http://www.aosb.org/pdf/iAOOS2008_final.pdf.
The integrated Arctic Ocean Observing System (iAOOS), originally
conceived and sponsored by the Arctic Ocean Sciences Board (AOSB), is
one of around 110 Coordination Proposals approved by the Joint
Committee for the International Polar Year (IPY), designed in this case
to optimize the cohesion and coverage of Arctic Ocean Science during the
IPY. As such, iAOOS is not a funded program in its own right but a
pan-arctic framework designed to achieve optimal coordination of funded
projects during the IPY. It has a Science Plan (see Dickson, 2006) based
on the >1150 Expressions of Interest received by the IPY; reflecting
these proposals, its main concern is with arctic change, including all
aspects of the role of the Northern Seas in Climate, and it draws its
primary focus on the present state and future fate of the Arctic Ocean
perennial sea-ice.
The 2008 report follows that of 2007 in concentrating largely on the
physical oceanography of iAOOS, but with a rather more diverse set of
aims. As last year, the principal objective is to provide a concise
account of the activities of the main iAOOS flagship projects during
2008 - cruises taken, instrumentation deployed, measurements made -
together with a summary description of additional work planned in 2009.
As last year, and again with the cooperation of PIs, a second component
of the report describes first results, concentrating in particular on
cases, which demonstrate the validity of an iAOOS program for the IPY.
As iAOOS completes its second year, however, it is appropriate to
identify two new things: first, ways in which the results of iAOOS are
being applied, both to the understanding of ecosystem change and in the
development of models; second, to use what has been learned during the
IPY to define which observational tasks and methods should be sustained
into the so-called IPY legacy phase. These two new issues form the third
and fourth main tasks of the 2008 report.
To view the report, please go to:
http://www.aosb.org/pdf/iAOOS2008_final.pdf.