June 2026 SCOR Newsletter #60

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SCOR News

Getting Involved with SCOR!

SCOR promotes advancements in ocean science by stimulating the development of international networks of scientists. These networks both enrich the work of individual scientists, and add value to national and international research and infrastructure investments by facilitating alignment of priorities, promoting comparability of results, and increasing the number of nations and scientists involved in addressing globally-important ocean science objectives.


The SCOR newsletter exemplifies the variety of ways of being involved in SCOR's activities: from applying to open positions on steering committees and other leadership groups, to taking part in community events, to applying the published outcomes of SCOR's activities to your own work.


Early-career scientists (ECS) are encouraged to get involved! SCOR encourages the cultivation of the next generation of scientists and leaders across all activities. PLUS! Specific opportunities for ECS include ECS committees/networks, a two-year position on the SCOR Executive Committee, summer schools and other trainings, and more!

Learn more about Getting Involved here!

Registration is open for the SCOR Annual Meeting!


The SCOR annual meeting will be held 8-10 September in Helsinki, Finland. The annual meeting will include reports from SCOR leadership, selection of new working groups, reports from current SCOR working groups and projects, information on the progress from planning activities, and updates from partners. The meeting offers remote participation and provides an opportunity for observers to learn more about SCOR and international ocean science.


Read more and register here


Symposium: A pre-meeting symposium on the afternoon of 7 September will highlight Baltic and Polar Science from Finland. Early-career scientists in Finland are invited to apply to present a poster during the symposium. A reception hosted by the City of Helsinki will follow.

New Capacity Development Committee Chair

SCOR gratefully acknowledges the dedicated efforts of Dr. Rebecca Zitoun (University of Tasmania, Australia) in leading the SCOR Capacity Development Committee since 2022!

The new chair, Dr. Nubi Olubunmi Ayoola began his oceanographic career at the Nigerian Institute for Oceanography and Marine Research (NIOMR) in 2004 and rose to become Director of the Physical and Chemical Oceanography Department, a position he held from January 2023 to April 2026. He has since built an international reputation in ocean science, ocean governance, and capacity development across West Africa and beyond. With over two decades of experience, he has been a driving force in training the next generation of ocean scientists through platforms such as SCOR, POGO, COESSING, DAAD, and the WASCAL Master Research Programme. With Dr. Nubi's sustained commitment to equitable access to ocean science education, coupled with his extensive collaborative partnerships with leading global marine science institutions, he brings a wealth of experience to his role as Chair of the Committee.
News from the Working Groups and Projects

Community Events


Registration Now Open: Workshop on Charting the Future of Ocean Passive Acoustics: From Observations to Science and Management


This workshop will provide an opportunity for participants to help design the post-IQOE phase of international activities related to passive acoustic observations of the ocean and their use in scientific research, education, management, and the arts. The workshop will be held at the VLIZ InnovOcean Campus, Oostende, Belgium from 22 to 24 September 2026. Remote participants will be provided with multiple ways to contribute. Register by 30 June for lower registration fees.


Read more and register here


Register now! 7th DMS(P) Symposium: Sulfur Carbon Nexus in the SOLAS Sphere


This Symposium will bring together a diversity of researchers interested in synthesizing the inextricable link of the sulfur and carbon cycles from cellular to global scale processes. The workshop is organized in a partnership between OCB, SOLAS, SCOR WG 166 DMS-PRO, and Schmidt Sciences will be held at Bigelow Laboratory in Boothbay Harbor, ME, USA from 12 to 15 October 2026.


Read more and register here


SCOR WG 174 SPASS Workshop – Ocean Interior Microplastic Measurement


Join SCOR WG 174 SPASS in their workshop on measuring ocean interior microplastics! The workshop will be held one day prior to the MICRO 2026 conference on 11 Oct. 2026, in Cádiz, Spain with remote participation available. Register your interest by 31 August.


Register your interest here


Seeking Host Bids: SOOS Symposium 2027


SOOS is now inviting bids to host its flagship international Southern Ocean symposium. This is a unique opportunity to bring together 400–500 members of the global Southern Ocean community across science, policy, and industry—and to help shape the future of Southern Ocean observing. Hosting offers strong international visibility, deep engagement with the community, and the chance to co-create a key moment for Antarctic and Southern Ocean science. Bids are due by 31 July.


Read more here


Membership Opportunities


Call for four new members of the IOCCP Scientific Steering Group (SSG)


IOCCP SSG members promote the development of a global network of ocean carbon and biogeochemistry observations, coordinate the development of globally acceptable strategies, and provide technical coordination developing operating methodologies, practices and standards, homogenizing efforts of the research community and scientific advisory groups. New members will develop and expand a comprehensive and effective set of coordination activities within specific IOCCP Themes:


(1) Data and Information Access Services

(2) Coordination of Regional Ocean Biogeochemical Observations in South East Asia

(3) Coordination of Oxygen Essential Ocean Variable

(4) Coordination of activities related to Instruments and Sensors and Technical Training Workshops

Nominations are due by 15 June.


Read more and apply here


Call for SOOS Scientific Steering Committee Nominations


SOOS SSC members are selected for their scientific excellence and standing in a field of Southern Ocean science that is relevant to at least one of the SOOS Science Themes or Foundational Capabilities in the SOOS Science and Implementation Plans (2026-2030 plan currently being developed), and connection to, and representation of a SOOS-relevant community or program. Nominations are due by 30 June.


Read more and apply here


Call for Nominations: SOOS Weddell Sea and Dronning Maud Land (WSDML) Regional Working Group Leadership Team


SOOS is seeking nominations, including self-nominations, for new members of the leadership team of the Weddell Sea and Dronning Maud Land Regional Working Group (WSDML RWG). This is an opportunity to help strengthen international coordination of observations and research in the region, contribute to the strategic direction of the working group, and build connections across the Southern Ocean community. Nominations are due by 23 June.


Read more and apply here


Call for Applications for the GEOTRACES Early Career Scientist Committee


Join a global network of ocean scientists and help shape ECS activities across the GEOTRACES community. Nominations are due by 3 July


Read more and apply here


Other Opportunities & News


Contribute to WG 173 ORCAS Literature Review


The community is invited to ORCAS's Literature Review Spreadsheet. This is a structured repository designed to catalogue and analyse research on AI-based sea ice models. It aims to provide a collaborative resource for tracking the evolution of machine learning approaches, including model architectures, training and validation datasets, and evaluation frameworks.


Read more here


GEOTRACES Online Seminar Series Launched


The GEOTRACES ECS Committee has launched a seminar series that aims to foster scientific exchange across the GEOTRACES community and beyond by bringing together senior scientists and early-career researchers around shared themes in trace element and isotope biogeochemistry. The series will run from April to November 2026 (with a break in July), with seminars planned for the last Tuesday of each month. 


Read more here


MixoExplorer from WG 165 MixONET


MixoExplorer is a simulation model that enables exploration of the impact of environmental conditions on a marine plankton food web under the traditional (phytoplankton-zooplankton) versus new (including mixoplankton) paradigm of marine ecology. The simulator is a contribution to WG 165 MixONET, which supports the recognition of this new paradigm and associated research methods.


Download the model and operation manual here

Even more news from the projects can be found at:


SCOR Research projects:

  • Marine biogeochemical cycles of trace elements and their isotopes (GEOTRACES)
  • Integrated Marine Biosphere Research (IMBeR)
  • Surface Ocean Lower Atmosphere Studies (SOLAS)
  • International Indian Ocean Expedition II (IIOE-2)
  • International Quiet Ocean Experiment (IQOE)


SCOR Infrastructural projects:

  • International Ocean Carbon Coordination Project (IOCCP)
  • Global Harmful Algal Blooms (GlobalHAB)
  • Southern Ocean Observing System (SOOS)
  • Changing Ocean Biological Systems (COBS)

Publication Highlights

WG 145 MarChemSpec honored with Best Paper of 2025 Award by the Cooperation on International Traceability in Analytical Chemistry (CITAC)!


Frank Bastkowski, Beatrice Sander, and Simon L. Clegg were presented with an award for their 2025 article (https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jced.5c00450) and provided the opportunity to describe the importance of their paper in the CITAC newsletter (page 61).


The paper is Part III of a series that includes work with collaborators Igor Maksimov and colleagues at the National Metrology Institute of Japan: Part I and Part II.


Read the complete story at http://marchemspec.org/.

WG 157 MetaZooGene: Blanco-Bercial, L., Questel, J. M., Batta-Lona, P. G., Escribano, R., Falkenhaug, T., Hirai, J., Huggett, J. A., Arbizu, P. M., Peijnenburg, K. T. C. A., Suter, L., Weydmann-Zwolicka, A., Dubbeldam, S., Duijm, E., Ershova-Menze, E., Gonzalez, C. E., Govender, A., Groeneveld, J., Khodami, S., MacDonald, A. J., … Bucklin, A. (2026). MetaZooGene Intercalibration Experiment (MZG-ICE): Metabarcoding Marine Zooplankton Diversity of the Global Ocean. Molecular Ecology Resources, 26(1), e70090. https://doi.org/10.1111/1755-0998.70090


WG 160 ATOMIX: Bluteau, C. E., Wain, D. J., Mullarney, J. C., & Stevens, C. L. (2026). Best practices for estimating turbulent dissipation from oceanic single-point velocity timeseries observations. Ocean Science, 22(2), 893–921. https://doi.org/10.5194/os-22-893-2026


COBS: Cornwall, C. E., Dillingham, P. W., Havenhand, J. N., Boyd, P. W., & McGraw, C. M. (2026). The design and analysis of marine multiple driver experiments. Ocean Ecosystems, 2(1), 3. https://doi.org/10.1186/s44419-026-00004-5


WG 163 CIce2Clouds: Creamean, J. M., Miller, L. A., van Pinxteren, M., Crabeck, O., Steiner, N. S., Marelle, L., Deschepper, I., Lapere, R., León-Marcos, A., Pratt, K. A., Thomas, J. L., Da Silva, A., Frey, M. M., Peeken, I., Horowitz, H. M., Willis, M. D., & Price, R. (2026). Polar primary aerosols across the ocean-sea ice-snow-atmosphere interface: From sources to impacts. Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene, 14(1), 00065. https://doi.org/10.1525/elementa.2025.00065


SOLAS: Hoffmann, L. J., Bach, L. T., Bauer, K. W., Cross, J., Ghosh, A., Hernández-Ayón, J. M., Kvale, K., Lencina-Avila, J. M., Matovu, B., Shaltout, N., Somorin, I. A., Mafuwane, H. C., Van Dam, B., Allela, A. A., Adell, M., Anderson, H., Arora, P., Atamanchuk, D., Avrutin, S., … Zitoun, R. (2026). Monitoring, reporting, and verification of marine carbon dioxide removal: Exploring scientific consensus and divergences across continents. Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene, 14(1), 00113. https://doi.org/10.1525/elementa.2025.00113


WG 163 CIce2Clouds: Ishino, S., Willis, M. D., Angot, H., Bartels-Rausch, T., Crabeck, O., Delille, B., Dunne, E., Franklin, E., Haddon, A., Hayashida, H., Joge, S. D., Lapere, R., Lim, H.-G., Mahajan, A. S., Mallet, M. D., Manville, G., Marelle, L., Nomura, D., Pratt, K. A., … Steiner, N. (2026). The biogenic sulfur cycle in the coupled ocean–sea ice–atmosphere system. Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene, 14(1), 1–60. https://doi.org/10.1525/elementa.2025.00067


WG 164 ConCENSUS: van Wyk, A. J., Stuart-Smith, R. D., Goetze, J. S., Maire, E., Heyns-Veale, E., Smit, K., Langlois, T. J., MacNeil, M. A., Pérez-Matus, A., Lombard, A. T., Carolina, A., Semmens, C., Clausius, E., Rolim, F. A., Lefcheck, J. S., Monk, J., Schmid, J. K., Tattersall, K., Ghigliotti, L., … Bernard, A. (2026). Global Analysis of Shallow Underwater Fish Observation Research: 70 Years of Progress, Persistent Geographic Biases and a Path Forward. Fish and Fisheries, 27(3), 607–626. https://doi.org/10.1111/faf.70072

In Memoriam

James Crease (UK), who passed away in 2025, was a "pioneer" in ocean science--integral to the establishment of the UK's National Institute of Oceanography, the British Oceanographic Data Service, and the World Ocean Circulation Experiment. The memoriam by the National Oceanography Centre highlights his role in laying the foundations for the global sharing of oceanographic data. Crease was chair of SCOR WG 51 Evaluation of CTD Data and a contributor to the activities of the Joint Panel on Oceanographic Tables and Standards (JPOTS; SCOR WG 10).


Photo by Warren Wooster, courtesy of Susan Wooster Allen

Jorge Sarmiento (USA), professor of geosciences emeritus at Princeton University, passed away on 5 May 2026. Sarmiento studied and modeled ocean circulation, biological processes in the ocean, and the impacts of circulation and metabolism on the oceanic distribution of carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and the other elements vital to ocean biology. He was a member of SCOR WG 68 North Atlantic Circulation, and an important contributor to the World Ocean Circulation Experiment and Joint Global Ocean Flux Study.


Read the memoriam by Princeton University


Photo by Princeton University
Emily Twigg
SCOR Executive Director

For updates on SCOR activities, see our Latest News section

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