Abstract

The Oceans of the Blue earth are crucial in controlling the atmosphere and climate we experience on the Green earth. Yet, our understanding of the functioning of the oceans and its organisms is limited by their sheer vastness and our inability to easily access them. This is set to change this century and open up a whole new era of exploration of the Blue Planet which will enhance our understanding of factors influencing the earth's atmosphere, climate and biodiversity.

The successful Argo network of 3300 floats (www.argo.ucsd.edu) shows that via international cooperation (in this case 26 nations) sustainable operational robotic exploration of the global oceans is possible and indeed routine for certain crucial variables. A new age of robotic exploration of the ocean is upon us, just as it has been in recent years for the exploration of other planets. We review some of the emerging technologies and most urgent needs for expansion and completion of a Global ocean observing system, especially for monitoring ocean acidity as a function of depth, location and time. At the national level, the US National Science Foundation has announced funding of US$762 m for its "Ocean Observing Initiative" (including US$106 million from "stimulus" funds), Australia added AUS$45 m to its initial investment of AUS$50 m in its IMOS, and the EU continues to invest in large Framework projects, for example €3.5 m in the EuroSites deep ocean observatories, with 13 partners across 8 European nations. Due to the importance of atmospheric gases and aerosols trapping heat in the biosphere, and hence warming the oceans, we also review parallel technologies in the atmosphere.

Taken as a whole, significant attention and resources are being directed internationally at better understanding the oceans. Doing so is crucial to determining future routes for humans to interact with the planet in a manner which sustains its core function in enabling life systems.

About the Speaker

Prof. A.D.J. "Tony" Haymet is the tenth director of Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego. Haymet also serves as UC San Diego's Vice Chancellor for Marine Sciences and Dean of the Graduate School of Marine Sciences, and is a Professor of Oceanography at Scripps and Chemistry at UCSD.

Tony works at the boundary of business, science and policy. He is a founder and currently Vice-Chair of CleanTech San Diego, a business development organization dedicated to the practical response to climate change issues, and in particular to meet the goals of California's landmark greenhouse gas legislation AB-32.

He has also launched SPHEAR, Scripps Partners for Hazard and Environmental Applied Research, an industry-based partnership for funding higher risk research projects in response to climate change, and funded Scripps' first Assistant Director for Business Development. He is appointed or elected to the following boards: US National Science Foundation (NSF) Geoscience Advisory Committee, the Cleantech Innovation Council of Cleantech Group LLC, the board of the Consortium for Ocean Leadership (COL) (Washington DC) and for-profit Boards of BioTopics SAS (France) and Carbella Trust. He is a member of the California Ocean Protection Science Advisor Team, and formerly Trustee of the California Ocean Science Trust, Chair of the Partnership for the Observation of Global Oceans (POGO). In 2008 he was a member for the ICSU/WMO/IOC review of the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP), and a contributor to the Asia Society's 2009 "Roadmap" for US-China Cooperation on Energy and Climate Change.

In Australia, he served as Chief of Marine and Atmospheric Research, then Director of Science and Policy, CSIRO. He was also chair of OPSAG, the Federal Governments Ocean Policy Science Advisory Group, and a member of NOAG, the National Ocean Advisory Group. Tony Haymet is a highly distinguished chemist whose research has focused on freezing, phase transitions, nucleation, and Antarctic fish antifreeze proteins. He holds degrees from the University of Sydney and the University of Chicago. He is the author of more than 163 peer-reviewed publications. More recently he has published Op-Ed pieces in major Australian and USA newspapers http://scripps.ucsd.edu/tony.