Joint Committee on the Properties of Seawater (JCS)
The Joint SCOR/IAPWS/IAPSO Committee on the Properties of Seawater (JCS) is a permanent group with limited membership whose purpose is to act as an international "point of contact" for seawater questions. It is jointly sponsored by organizations directly concerned with the properties of seawater: the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research, the International Association for the Properties of Water and Steam, and the International Association for the Physical Sciences of the Ocean.
JCS acts as a permanent source of expertise to its parent organizations, maintains a repository of knowledge and software for the scientific community (via a web-site, www.teos-10.org), and is also a conduit for any desired communications between its parents, and out to other international organizations like the BIPM (Bureau International des Poids et Mesures), the WMO (World Meteorological Organization), and IUPAC (International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry). In addition, JCS may from time to time summarize progress in seawater-related issues to the community at large, and suggest areas where gaps exist in the available knowledge.
Executive
Chair: Rich Pawlowicz, University of British Columbia, Dept. of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, Canada
Vice-Chairs: Rainer Feistel, Leibniz-Institute for Baltic Sea Research, Germany; Steffen Seitz, Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB), Germany
Taskgroups
Salinity/Density - Chair: (Pawlowicz), (Seitz), H. Uchida, F. Millero, S. Weinreben, Y. Pang, R. Woosley, Y. Kayukawa
pH - Chair: A. Dickson, M.F. Camoes, D. Stoica, S. Clegg, F. Bastkowski
Moist Air - Chair: O. Hellmuth, J. Lovell-Smith, (Feistel), S. Bell
Expert Subgroups
• Thermodynamics (Feistel)
• Numerical modelling and applications T. McDougall
• Software P. Barker
• Industry B. Laky/Anton Paar, R. Williams/OSIL
Contacts: http://www.teos-10.org/contact_us.htm
Website: www.teos-10.org
TEOS-10 in Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TEOS-10
Documents
- TEOS-10 manual 10jun 2010
- An historical perspective on the development of the Thermodynamic Equation of Seawater – 2010, Ocean Sci., 8, 161–174, 2012
- Report on activities at JCS workshops, Greenwich, UK Sept. 2-3, 2013
- JCS Update, Presentation of Trevor McDougall to the GBM, Prague June 2015
- Activities Report June 2015-June 2017
- Report to SCOR and IAPSO on JCS Workshops Sept 2018 and Recommendations on renewal of Terms of Reference and membership
- Activities Report June 2017-June 2019
- JCS Update, Presentation of Rich Pawlowicz to the GBM, Montreal July 2019
- Activities Report June 2019-June 2022
Commission on Mean Sea Level and Tides (CMSLT)
The IAPSO Commission on Mean Sea Level and Tides (CMSLT) aims to support research into applications of sea level measurements. In addition to sponsoring meetings, the CMSLT is the body that the Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level formally reports to.
The CMSLT has always had a policy of considering as members any researchers who express interest in the topics of mean sea level and tides.
President: Gary T. Mitchum, University of South Florida, USA
Contact: to get in touch with the CMSLT write to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Documents
- Annual Report 2011
- Report 2019
- Summary report on meeting of July 13, 2019, Montreal
Tsunami Commission (Joint with IASPEI and IAVCEI)
The IUGG Tsunami Commission (IUGG/TC) is an Inter-Association Commission responsible for international coordination of tsunami related meetings, research, and publications. It is jointly sponsored by IASPEI, IAPSO and IAVCEI and was established at the 12th General Assembly of IUGG in Helsinki, Finland in 1960 to promote the exchange of scientific and technical information about tsunamis.
The IUGG/TC membership comprises an international group of scientists concerned with various aspects of tsunamis, including an improved understanding of the dynamics of generation, propagation and coastal run-up and the consequences to society of the tsunami hazard.
IUGG Tsunami Commission website contains the current information about the Commission activities and upcoming meetings.
Chair: Yuichiro Tanioka, Japan
Vice-Chairs: Maria Ana Baptista, Portugal; Diana Greenslade, Australia; Alexander Rabinovich, Russia
Secretary: Mohammad Heidarzadeh, Iran/UK
IAPSO representative: Efim Pelinovsky, Institute of Applied Physics, Dep. of Extreme Wave Phenomena, Russia
Contact: https://tsunamicommission.ipma.pt/contact/
Website: https://tsunamicommission.ipma.pt/
Documents
- Activities Report 1995-1997
- Activities Report 1999
- Activities Report 2009-2011
- Tsunamis in the Mediterranean Sea 2000 B.C.-2000 A.D., Springer, 2000
- Activities Report 2011-2015
- Activities Report 2015-2017
- Activities Report 2017-2019
- Activities Report 2019-2022
Joint Commission on Ice-Ocean Interactions (JCIOI, joint with IACS)
Ocean-driven ice melt is the largest driver of dynamic ice loss from the Antarctic Ice Sheet, and is projected to increase in both Antarctica and Greenland under sustained climate warming. In addition to contributing to global sea level rise, the injection of polar meltwater into the ocean will have broad-scale impacts on ocean circulation and heat content, air-sea exchanges, and ecosystems. However, a paucity of long-term ocean and ice state observations constrains characterisation of the processes of ice-ocean exchange. This in turn limits our capacity to accurately represent ocean-driven ice melting in numerical ocean and ice sheet models that are used to project scenarios of climate and Earth systems change.
JCIOI aims to address these knowledge gaps, by globally coordinating and engaging in research and development related to understanding, observing and modeling ice-ocean interactions. This will include research under ice shelves, at the ice-ocean front in tidewater glaciers, and at the sea surface in the marginal ice zone. JCIOI will develop ties with international working groups to exchange knowledge and engage with the wider ice-ocean research community. Key activities will include development of a framework to reconcile numerical model estimates of ocean-driven ice mass loss with observations, to engage with groups developing broad-scale observational networks in Antarctica and Greenland, and to facilitate improvement of the representation of ice-ocean interactions in numerical models.
Chairs: Felicity McCormack (IAPSO) and Isabel Nias (IACS).
Contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Website: https://sites.google.com/view/jcioi/home
Documents
- Terms of reference
- Report on the first JCIOI workshop on ice-ocean interactions (17-19 October 2022)
- Activities Report 2019-2022
