No. 11 - 2011-07-15

LETTER TO NC AND EC

Written by EUGENE MOROZOV, President IAPSO
OPEN LETTER No. 11 • July 15, 2011

Dear IAPSO Colleagues:

As the new president of IAPSO, I am writing to inform you, as a National Correspondent (NC), of recent IAPSO activities and developments. At the same time, the Executive Committee (EC) of IAPSO would like to open the lines of communication with you, and hear of your ideas on how we can make IAPSO a more dynamic and relevant international organization for physical and chemical oceanography.  I would like you to share this open letter with oceanic colleagues in your own country, in order to solicit their feedback and comments.

THANKS TO OUTGOING EXECUTIVE:
At the last General Business Meeting (GBM) of IAPSO in Melbourne, at the 25th General Assembly of IUGG, July 2011, a number of IAPSO EC members completed their terms and a new EC was elected.

I would especially like to acknowledge with thanks, the many contributions of the outgoing Past President Shiro Imawaki. I also thank John Gould for his work as the IAPSO EC member. His comments and advices on the IAPSO activities were valuable.

Lawrence Mysak, the former IAPSO President, who is now the Past President, has done a great job of implementing the IAPSO initiatives started after his election to the presidency in 2007. He has also ensured that the GBMs of IAPSO (in 2009 and 2011) were run efficiently and effectively. Owing to his efforts, the Joint IAPSO Assembly in 2009 in Montreal (his home city) was a success. Recently, he has been providing me with invaluable advice and suggestions in my role as president.

It is a great pleasure to thank Fred Camfield for his 16 years of dedicated service as Secretary General (SG) of IAPSO and now as the IAPSO Treasurer. I thank Johan Rodhe, the Secretary General for his efforts to communicate with the National Correspondent, many efforts to prepare the scientific program of the Assembly in Melbourne, and developing a new IAPSO web-site.
Many thanks to Denise Smythe-Wright, the Vice-President; she headed the Albert I prize commission. Many thanks to Isabelle Ansorge, who was elected the Vice-President, Stefania Sparnocchia, and Silvia Blanc. Their opinions and advices were extremely helpful.

EC MEMBERS FOR 2011-2015:
Thanks to the efficient work of the nominations committee chaired by Shiro Imawaki, a truly international slate of members were proposed and subsequently elected to the IAPSO EC at the GBM in Melbourne. They are as follows:

President: Dr. Eugene Morozov (Russia)
Secretary General: Prof. Johan Rodhe (Sweden)
Past President: Prof. Lawrence Mysak (Canada)
Treasurer:  Dr. Fred Camfield (USA)
Vice President: Dr. Isabelle Ansorge (South Africa)
Dr. Denise Smythe-Wright (UK)
EC Member: M.Sc. Silvia Blanc (Argentina)
Prof. Toshiyuki Hibiya (Japan)
Dr. Chris Meinen (USA)
M.App.Sc. Ken Ridgway (Australia)
Dr. Satheesh Shenoi  (India)
Dr. Stefania Sparnocchia (Italy)

A highlight of the Montreal Assembly was the presentation of the 2009 Price Albert I Medal to Prof. Harry Bryden -- he is the fifth recipient of this medal, the previous medalists being Drs. W. Munk (2001), K. Wyrtki (2003), F. Schott (2005), and R. Davis (2007). The sixth medalist was Dr. Trevor McDougall from Australia. He was awarded this prize in 2011 during the Assembly in Melbourne. We encourage the oceanographic community of the world to nominate future candidates for the Albert I medal. The guidelines can be obtained from the IAPSO website http://iapso.iugg.org.

The SCOR meetings review the progress of current SCOR working groups (WGs), evaluated proposed new WGs, and discussed a number of international scientific programs that are SCOR-related. Details can be found at the SCOR website (www.scor-int.org). As you know, SCOR is a very important partner of IAPSO, and as such the two organizations have, over the past few years, jointly sponsored a number of working groups, namely, WG 121: Ocean mixing (now disbanded); WG 127: Thermodynamics and equation of state of seawater; WG 129: Deep ocean exchanges with the shelf (DOES), WG 133: Ocean Scope, and WG 136:  http://www.scor-int.org/Working_Groups/wg136.htm" Climatic Importance of the Greater Agulhas System. The WG 127 has recently developed a new International Thermodynamic Equation of Seawater -2010 (TEOS-10). It was adopted by the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC).

IAPSO-IAHS-IASPEI JOINT ASSEMBLY IN GOTHENBURG, 22-26 JULY 2013
The next assembly of IAPSO will be held jointly with IAHS and IASPEI in 2013, the midway point between IUGG General Assemblies.
In 2011 in Melbourne, we started to plan the IAPSO symposia and identify appropriate conveners for the Gothenburg assembly. However, we would like to hear from you about your ideas for symposia, and offers of your willingness to be conveners. There will also be several joint symposia with IAHS and IASPEI. Please send our SG, Johan Rodhe, your ideas or expressions of interest. By December 2011, we would like to have most of the symposia and conveners in place.

Presently, the IAPSO website is based in Sweden and is under the charge of Johan Rodhe (http://iapso.iugg.org).

CONCLUDING REMARKS
The IAPSO Executive Committee sincerely would like to improve the communication with the national correspondents and to hear your views on how we can improve the operation and visibility of IAPSO. Please share this open letter with your colleagues. I look forward to hearing from you.

As the new IAPSO President I will do my best to keep the IAPSO traditions and continue IAPSO activities that facilitate ocean physics and chemistry research and communication between scientists.

With best wishes,

Eugene Morozov

E-mail. egmorozov@mail.ru">egmorozov@mail.ru

President, IAPSO
and
Head of the Hydrological Processes Lab. at the Shirshov Institute in Moscow, Russia.
36 Nakhimovsky prospect,
117997, Moscow Russia
E-mail. egmorozov@mail.ru">egmorozov@mail.ru