Special Issue of Oceanography titled "Paleoceanography - Lessons for a Changing World"

Oceanography Society, Rockville MD

Investigators

Abstract

The Oceanography Society (TOS) will publish a special issue of the open-access journal Oceanography with the title "Paleoceanography - Lessons for a Changing World". The special issue will provide a comprehensive, accessible, and authoritative summary of the Earth system problems that paleoceanographers are currently pursuing as well as the state-of-the-art techniques used in their research, with the twin goals of stimulating new collaborations within the global Earth and ocean sciences community and providing up-to-date, peer-reviewed syntheses for use worldwide by educators and decision-makers. Oceanography Editor Dr. Ellen Kappel, along with four guest editors who are experts in the field, Drs. Alan Mix, Peggy Delaney, Laurie Menviel, and Katrin Meissner, will ensure that the proposed set of peer-reviewed articles, spotlights, and information boxes will further these objectives. The special issue will provide a coherent compendium of the most recent results from research intended as a basis for undergraduate and graduate classroom instruction and discussions, as well as to inform policymakers. The journal gets broad distribution within the oceanography community as well as in institutional libraries and with government representatives. More than half the regular subscribers to Oceanography are graduate students. To ensure the greatest impact, TOS will make freely available a PDF of the full issue for download from the Oceanography website. The proposed special issue of Oceanography will broadly review significant scientific accomplishments of paleoceanographic research in the last decade and provide a forward look at research opportunities. Six specific themes will serve to organize the special issue: (1) proxy development, new models and statistical tools; (2) geobiology, linking paleoclimate changes with biology and evolution; (3) carbon-climate feedbacks across time-scales; (4) ocean circulation and climate system dynamics; (5) the role of the Southern Hemisphere and tropical processes in global climate; and (6) ice-ocean interactions. The set of Oceanography articles will provide a benchmark against which current and future changes in climate, the carbon cycle, sea level changes, and marine ecosystems can be assessed. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.