Announcement
1st Joint GOSUD/SAMOS Workshop 2-4 May 2006
UCAR Center Green Campus Boulder, Colorado, USA
Organizers: Shawn R. Smith, Robert Keeley, Thierry Delcroix, and Mark Bourassa
Local Host: Christopher Fairall
Local Arrangements: UCAR/JOSS
Sponsor: NOAA Office of Climate Observations/OGP
The 1st Joint GOSUD/SAMOS Workshop will be held at the UCAR Center Green Campus from 2-4 May 2006. The workshop will identify areas of international collaboration between the Global Ocean Surface Underway Data (GOSUD) project (www.gosud.org) and the Shipboard Automated Meteorological and Oceanographic System (SAMOS) initiative (http://samos.coaps.fsu.edu). Through a series of invited speakers and panel discussions, the workshop also aims to stimulate interest in utilizing automated atmospheric and near-surface ocean measurements to further the scientific objectives of the oceanic, atmospheric, and global climate communities.
The workshop will advance international plans to provide high-accuracy, calibrated, quality-controlled, near-surface ocean (GOSUD) and marine meteorological observations (SAMOS) to the scientific community. The observations currently collected by GOSUD and SAMOS are measured by automated underway instrument systems on research and merchant vessels. These research-quality observations are an essential component to the developing ocean observing system. They are an ideal resource to validate satellite sensors, provide benchmarks of air-sea flux fields, and improve our understanding of ocean circulations.
The workshop will be comprised of three main sessions.
1. A plenary science session. The science session will include both invited oral speakers and contributed poster presentations. Topics for the science session will include current and future applications of SAMOS and GOSUD observations to climate and ocean problems, data uncertainty and bias correction, and model and satellite validation. Additional speakers will be invited to discuss potential collaboration with other automated marine meteorological and near-surface ocean measurement programs (e.g., PIRATA, OceanSites, SeaKeepsers, etc.).
2. Parallel technical sessions for the GOSUD and SAMOS programs. During these sessions, each program will discuss data stewardship and technical issues related to their individual program's goals.
3. The final session will be a joint round-table discussion where invited speakers and members of the SAMOS and GOSUD projects will develop a plan for synergetic activities.
Workshop deliverables will include a written meeting report that will be summarized and submitted to an ocean-atmosphere publication. The report will detail the recommendations, action items, and plans for collaboration between the GOSUD and SAMOS programs. The plan will contain areas of responsibility, data/product pathways, a time line for development, and where necessary, cost estimates for developing and evolving the shipboard observing system. Finally, a list of follow-up actions will identify activities that may lead to improvements of the system through synergistic, collaborative, and other low-cost efforts.
The workshop is open to anyone (but limited to 45 participants) with an interest in high quality meteorological and near-surface oceanographic observations collected by automated sensors on ships. The organizers are seeking contributions from research and operational data users, marine technicians, vessel operators, and funding agencies. Members of the satellite, modeling, and other user communities are especially encouraged to attend. All parties interested in attending the workshop are requested to register on-line at:
http://www.coaps.fsu.edu/RVSMDC/marine_workshop3/
by 28 February 2006 (see site for hotel/logistics). If you are interested in presenting a poster, please submit a short abstract when you register. Suitable poster topics would include present and future applications of underway meteorological and near-surface ocean observations, instrument system design, current ship and moored platform deployments, calibration practices, data stewardship (data flow, QC, archival), and technician training tools. Questions and comments regarding the workshop should be directed to Shawn R. Smith (smith@coaps.fsu.edu).