The role of the oceans in Earth systems ecology, and the effects of climate variability on the ocean and its ecosystems, can be understood only by observing, describing, and ultimately predicting the state of the ocean as a physically forced ecological and biogeochemical system. This is a daunting but exciting challenge, because the ocean-atmosphere system is dynamically linked, and oceanic habitats are both diverse and complex, providing tremendous variety in environmental conditions and associated life forms. And paradoxically, as we learn more and more about ocean life, for example, through the genomics revolution (Doney et al., 2004), the number of unanswered questions increases.

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