UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC/UNESCO), El Centro de Estudios Avanzados en Zonas Áridas (CEAZA) and the Universidad Catolica del Norte, as well as many other partners and sponsors organized the GOOD-OARS-CLAP-COPAS Summer School from 6-12 تشرين الثاني/نوفمبر 2023 in La Serena, Chile to teach the latest science of ocean acidification and deoxygenation.
This marks the second such school, following its occurrence in Xiamen, China, 2019.
The school concept is a creation of two IOC-supported expert groups, the Global Ocean Oxygen Network (GO2NE) and the Global Ocean Acidification Network (GOA-ON). These groups are committed to providing a global and multidisciplinary view of deoxygenation and ocean acidification, focusing on enhancing understanding of their multiple aspects and cumulative impacts. The networks offer scientific advice to policy makers to preserve marine resources in the presence of acidification and deoxygenation.
They teamed up with two affiliated UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development programmes, the Global Ocean Oxygen Decade (GOOD) and the Ocean Acidification Research for Sustainability (OARS), to develop the summer school framework as a means to engage early career ocean professionals.
The Chile summer school provided a great opportunity for 33 young researchers from 17 countries to meet more than 15 world experts in their respective fields. The days were filled with presentations on different aspects of ocean acidification and deoxygenation as well as practical sessions on modelling, laboratory experiments, shipboard measurements and analysis, communication training (mostly scientific) and an introduction to ethics in science. The programme closed with a stakeholder day, where students and teachers visited offshore sea scallops aquaculture platforms in Tongoy Bay and interacted with the local scallop aquaculture cooperative stakeholders.
Having been through the school, students, lecturers, and organizers will go forward with new ideas and new friends to develop professional networks for successful careers. The next GOOD-OARS summer school is already provisionally planned for 2025.
Interested in more information about ocean oxygen please sign up to the GO2NE/GOOD email list and visit the ocean-oxygen website.
For more insights on ocean acidification become a GOA-ON member and check out the GOA-ON website.
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