News and Announcements

TOS NEWS – OCTOBER 1, 2019

1. From the President

The Oceanography Society has been very active in supporting two community-based conferences in September. Jenny Ramarui attended the 13th International Conference on Paleoceanography (ICP 13) that was held in Sydney, Australia, and supported several TOS outreach activities. The conference presented and shared the latest science in paleoceanography from around the world. With support from the US National Science Foundation, Oceanography will be publishing a special issue in June 2020 resulting from ICP 13. TOS has offered support to the ICP community for future meetings, and we will see how this develops. Ellen Kappel and Terri Paluszkiewicz supported an early career event and the TOS booth at the decadal conference OceanObs’19 in Hawaii. I had the pleasure of co-chairing the OceanObs’19 sponsors committee, and the TOS contribution that supported early career and student travel was much appreciated. Fourteen hundred attendees celebrated success and laid out plans for the next decade under the motto: “connecting to the users.” Ocean observing has come a long way from the beginning of coordinated global observations articulated at the OceanObs’99 meeting, with global hydrography (GoShip), profiling float (Argo), and time-series observatories (OceanSites) as some of the networks. OceanObs’09 began to fully be embracing chemistry (GeoTraces, ICOS, SOCAT) and early strides to biology and ecology. At OceanObs’19, the discussion was more about “fit-for-purpose” observing systems to serve science, ocean services, the private sector, and civil society information needs. The conference statement will be refined by a living action document to which other parts of the ocean observing community can contribute. TOS would be well positioned to think about a community award for ocean observing and continued engagement in articulating support for the data gathering part of what we do.

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2. TOS Council Election – self nominations invited by October 11

The TOS Council has been very busy over these past several months working on the new TOS Honors program and other initiatives. We would like to take a moment to thank Peter Sedwick (Chemical Oceanography) and James Girton (Applied Technology), both of whom will complete their service on the Council in December. In addition to general oversight responsibilities, Pete (as the committee chair) and James (as a committee member) were instrumental in developing the TOS Honors program.

We’re currently organizing the election to determine the next Council members for these two positions and invite self-nominations from interested members. To submit your information, please send a statement of interest and an abbreviated CV to Jenny Ramarui by October 11, 2019. The current Council members will review all submissions and will contact each prospective nominee as the ballot is developed.

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3. Memberships renewal messages arriving this week

Messages reminding regular, sponsoring, and early career members to renew your membership will arrive via email this week from “The Oceanography Society.” Renewing your membership before registering for the Ocean Sciences Meeting will ensure that you receive discounted rates for the conference. You are welcome to pay online by clicking the invoice attached to the renewal message, or by clicking the Membership Renewal link in the body of the email. We also welcome checks mailed to the TOS Office (address at bottom of message).

Student members whose expected year of graduation is 2019 will receive a separate email message asking them to update their record. Memberships remain active for students whose expected year of graduation is 2020 onward.

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4. Nominate colleagues for TOS Honors by October 31

Nominate your colleagues by October 31 for TOS Honors! In addition to the established TOS Fellows and updated Munk Medal, nominations are open for the Broecker Medal for acheivements in marine geoscience, chemical oceanography or paleoceanography, and and the Sears Medal for achievements in biological oceanography. Full details available here.

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5. September issue of Oceanography on PISCO now online

The September issue of Oceanography on PISCO: Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans is online, and mailed copies will be sent this week. An email message from Advanced Publishing, providing access to the full PDF version of this issue was sent to all members on September 10, 2019.