2023 IAPSO Activities

INTRODUCTION

IAPSO has the prime goal of ‘promoting the study of scientific problems relating to the oceans and the interactions taking place at the sea floor, coastal, and atmospheric boundaries insofar as such research is conducted by the use of mathematics, physics, and chemistry.’ IAPSO works mainly through 1) biennial scientific assemblies; 2) working groups; 3) commissions; 4) services and 5) website information. Of special importance to IAPSO is the involvement of scientists and students from developing countries in oceanographic activities.

IAPSO maintains formal liaison with other scientific commissions and committees. These include the ISC's Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR), and UNESCO's Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC). 

For more information see https://iapso-ocean.org.

ADMINISTRATION

The IAPSO Bureau was renewed in July 2023 during the IUGG General Assembly in Berlin. It comprises:

President: Hans van Haren (the Netherlands)
Past President: Trevor McDougall (Australia)
Secretary General: Silvia Blanc (Argentina)
Treasurer: Ken Ridgway (Australia) 

The Executive Committee comprises the Bureau members and

Vice-President: Agatha de Boer (Sweden), Toshiyuki Hibiya (Japan)
Members at Large: Juliet Hermes (South Africa), Joellen Russell (USA), Yukio Masumoto (Japan), Jae-Hun Park (Republic of Korea), Alejandra Sanchez-Franks (United Kingdom), Regina Rodrigues (Brazil), Peter Zavialov (Russia), Malin Ödalen (Germany, chair IAPSO-EC)

The IAPSO office and day-to-day business is managed by Secretary General (SG) Silvia Blanc. The SG is responsible for the IAPSO website.

IAPSO finances are managed by the Australian-based Treasurer, Ken Ridgway.

Except during the Berlin meeting, IAPSO business meetings were conducted by email and videoconference where appropriate.

ACTIVITIES

28th IUGG General Assembly 11-20 July 2023, Berlin
IAPSO participated in the Berlin General Assembly of IUGG in July 2023. Of the total number of attendees of about 5,000, about 400 had the IAPSO affiliation. This was a very successful meeting, and because of the cancelation of the 2021 Joint Assembly in Busan in 2021 (due to COVID-pandemic), this was the first scientific assembly of IAPSO in four years.

At the Berlin 28th IUGG General Assembly the IAPSO Early Career Scientist Medal was awarded to Dr Malte Stuecker (University of Hawaii) “in recognition of his fundamental contributions to understanding the dynamics of tropical climate variability, its interactions with other parts of the climate system, and elucidating the spatial patterns of climate change”.

IAPSO’s premier Medal, the Prince Albert I Medal was awarded in July 2023 to Professor John Church AO (University of New South Wales, Sydney) “for his research on sea level change in the 20th and 21st centuries and its response to natural and human factors. John has reconstructed the global sea level record back to the 1870s, and his work has been central to the IPCC WG1 reports and to the projection of sea level change as it will affect
the 100 million people living within 1m of present mean sea level.”

The 2023 Eugene LaFond Medal, given in memory of Eugene LaFond (IAPSO Secretary General 1970-1987) to an ocean scientist from a developing country who makes an oral or poster presentation at an IUGG or IAPSO assembly was awarded to Dr. Helenice Vital from Brazil for her oral presentation “SeabedMap Project - Sensing, integration and analysis of digital information in marine geological mapping, Brazilian equatorial margin”.

SCOR Administration 
IAPSO President Hans van Haren attended the SCOR Annual Meeting held in Guayaquil Ecuador in October 2023. The many subsidiary bodies of SCOR were reviewed and memberships renewed. Many of these bodies coordinate physical, biogeochemical and fisheries research in the global ocean. Two new SCOR working groups were selected for funding, each receiving sufficient funds for three face-to-face meetings.

ACTIVITIES OF ASSOCIATION COMMISSIONS, WORKING GROUPS

Early Career Scientist Working Group
IAPSO ECS are in contact with a large and growing number of other networks, within and outside of the IUGG. They have co-organised ECS activities at the IUGG Joint Assembly in Berlin and joint webinars for networks in the Early Career Ocean Professionals (ECOP) programme. They also contributed to the IUGG's outreach activities (https://www.youtube.com/@internationalunionofgeodes3442/videos). Their website has been extended (https://www.iapsoecs.org) with educational resources, job- and fellowship opportunities, and continues to grow. In 2023 they extended their social media presence to LinkedIn. They steadily reach 500+ subscribers across their communication channels. In 2023, IAPSO ECS became chaired by Malin Ödalen (Germany).

IAPSO Best Practice Study Groups
In October 2023 IAPSO has launched its third call for proposals to fund IAPSO Best Practice Study Groups at the rate of two every two years (https://iapso-ocean.org/funding-opportunities/best-practices-study-groups.html). An IAPSO Best Practice Study Group will address an issue whose resolution will assist in the conduct of oceanographic research. In carrying out oceanographic research, a choice must frequently be made between a few options for measuring data, analysing data, processing software, or modelling a system. The reasons for choosing between competing methods are often not well documented and the relative strengths and weaknesses of these routes are usually not published or well known. Each Best Practice Study Group will receive up to US$12,000 towards the costs of a meeting.

Joint Commission on Ice-Ocean Interactions (JCIOI, joint with IACS)
This JCIOI continued their discussions session in the 28th IUGG General Assembly held in Berlin. They hosted a joint session (JP04: Ice-Ocean Interactions: Challenges and Insights from Theory, Observations and Modelling) as well as they co-hosted with OCEAN:ICE a discussion session (on Ice sheet impacts on ocean circulation and climate feedbacks).

They were successful in securing funding for an IAPSO Best Practice Study Group to develop a framework for observing and modelling ocean-driven ice melt rates in Antarctica. Their proposal included a workshop in mid 2024 to develop this framework in advance of - and to inform fieldwork planning for - the Antarctica. Additionally, the JCIOI plan for the framework for observing and modelling ice-ocean interactions was presented at AGU23 (advancing Earth and Space Sciences).

Joint Committee on the Properties of Seawater (JCS)
Members continued working on tasks identified during the 2018 Workshops and on maintaining the TEOS-10 website (www.teos-10.org) and associated software, as well as other items relevant to JCS. These include important publications on the long-term stability of conductivity, density, and chemical composition of IAPSO Standard Seawater. A new taskgroup on chemical speciation was formed to continue working on issues identified by SCOR WG-145 (Chemical Speciation Modelling in Seawater) and in June publicly released their first version of software for speciation calculations at marchemspec.org. A draft JCS website was created but a permanent host for it is not yet established.

Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level (PSMSL)
In 2023 the PSMSL added 1350 station-years from 693 stations to the global mean sea level databank and re-established contact with suppliers in Brazil, Denmark, Iceland, India, Italy, Lithuania and South Africa, who hadn't supplied data in recent years. In May its staff helped organise the 2nd online tide gauge workshop under the EuroSea project, which brought together the tide gauge community to discuss global networks, datasets and data portals, case studies in the use of tide gauge data, new methods and technologies such as low cost sensors and GNSS Interferometric Reflectometry (GNSS-IR) and the latest developments in automated quality control.

The PSMSL led the IAPSO Best Practice Study Group on Tidal Analysis, culminating in a workshop in Liverpool in November, where scientists from around the world shared their experience in tidal analysis.

Tsunami Commission (Joint with IASPEI and IAVCEI)
The JTC organized a hybrid Business Meeting on July 16th 2023, in Berlin. Six The Working Groups have been endorsed, namely: Tsunami Terminology WG, Science-based Tsunami Warning WG, Tsunami Magnitude WG, GNSS Data for Tsunami Warning WG, Meteotsunami WG, and Tsunami Data WG. They presented their recent activities during the Commission business meeting in Berlin. An International Tsunami Symposium was held during the 28th IUGG General Assembly (JP05: Tsunamis). The 8th Joint ICG/PTWS– IUGG/JTC Technical Workshop “Understanding and lessons learned from the tsunami generated by the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano eruption on 15 January 2022 for development of Tsunami Warning and Mitigation System for tsunamis generated by volcanoes and other non-seismic sources” was held in Tonga. Members of the JTC actively participated in organization of numerous tsunami sessions in AGU, EGU, AOGS General Assemblies and other Int. conferences in 2022-2023. The JTC published current tsunami research in Pure and Applied Geophysics as topical volumes, such as the three papers published online in the Turkey-2023 Earthquake and Tsunami Topical collection.

Supported Meetings
IAPSO endorsed the Summer School “From meso to sub-mesoscale ocean circulation structures: satellite and in-situ measurements, physical mechanisms and biological impact” that will be held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, 15 to 20 July 2023, through the presentation of a proposal to the IUGG Support Programme 2024 which was awarded.

Awards/Anniversaries/Obituaries

Awards

• Prof. Em. John Church (UNSW) has been appointed Fellow of the International Science Council (ISC).
• IAPSO scientist, Prof. Toshiyuki Hibiya (University of Tokyo, Japan) is awarded the IUGG Fellowship for being a global leader in understanding the production of ocean turbulence by the internal tide and the parameterization of mixing in ocean and climate models.

Obituaries

	Prof. Toshihiko Teramoto (Japan) passed away on December 1, 2023 at the age of 97. As a professor in the Dept. of Physical Oceanography at the Ocean Research Institute affiliated with the Univ. of Tokyo, he has pioneered various researches based on the measurement of physical processes in the open ocean, with outstanding achievements in the study of Kuroshio variations, ocean tides and Deep circulation in the North Pacific. He has made major contributions to the development of satellite-based oceanographic observations and to the introduction of direct ocean current measurement methods, including the measurement of ocean currents based on geopotential differences across straits and ultrasonic current velocity systems. He an honorary member of the Oceanographic Society of Japan for his efforts in conducting and developing research in physical oceanography in Japan. He also served in many oceanographic service roles and was Vice President of IAPSO from 1983 to 1987.
	Prof. Dr. Wilhelmus P.M. de Ruijter RSSA (Netherlands) passed away 12th January 2023, age 71. He was well recognised as one of the great original thinkers on ocean dynamics and stimulated the cohesive efforts of a large group of creative colleagues to work on central problems at the forefront of ocean science. He received the Royal decoration in the Order of the Dutch Lion in 2011 and he was an Ordinary Fellow (foreign) of The Royal Society Of South Africa since 2001. Prof. Dr. de Ruijter has participated for a long time in the activities of IAPSO, also in the functions of National Correspondent of the Netherlands. He was a full member of SCOR WG #136 on Climatic Importance of the Greater Agulhas System. He was well loved by his colleagues and students given his vibrant mentorship and inquisitive nature.
	Prof Mathieu Rouault (South Africa) – 17 January 2023. He was the director of the Nansen Tutu Center for Marine Environmental Research and an associate professor in the Dept. of Oceanography, University of Cape Town. He was also the president of the South African Society for Atmospheric Science. In 2002, he was a POGOSCOR fellow joining the PIRATA FR11 cruise and receiving training in all aspects regarding deployment of the ATLAS system. His research was focused on ocean atmosphere interaction from numerical modelling to experimental work at sea, from meteorology and physical oceanography to climatology and the impact of climate change and variability on marine ecosystems and water resource. J. Hermes wrote: "... his work on air-sea interaction over the Agulhas was seminal. The oceanographic community in South Africa are all shocked and saddened by his untimely passing."
	Prof. Bjorn Sundby (Canada) – 23 January 2023. He was a retired Professor from the Universite du Québec a Rimouski (UQAR) and adjunct professor from McGill University in Canada. He served SCOR as Secretary (1996-2000), President (2004-2008) and Past  President (2008-2012). He was a SCOR Nominated Member for Canada serving the Canadian SCOR Committee as Secretary (1996-2000) and as Chair (2003-2006). He earned his PhD in physical organic chemistry at the Univ. of Bergen in 1966 and then moved to Dalhousie Univ. in Halifax for a postdoctoral position. He held many relevant positions and worked on a broad array of topics, including the marine phosphate cycle, processing of organic matter in permeable and soft sediments, transient diagenesis, the use of redox tracers as paleo indicators, micro-scale redox cycling in the rhizosphere and the development of Au/Hg amalgam microelectrodes for measuring redox species at fine spatial scales. Through his extensive service to SCOR, he contributed to shape the focus of international oceanographic research and inform marine policy.
	Prof. Miguel Dino Fortes (Philippines) – 30 April 2023. He was a Professor at the University of the Philippines, and a full member of WG #158, Coordinated Global Research Assessment of Seagrass System (C-GRASS). He was a tireless advocate for seagrasses and for building the seagrass community of practice globally. He was the author of Seagrassses: A resource unknown in the ASEAN, which was inspirational for generations to come working in seagrass beds and their relation to food security.

PLANNED FUTURE ACTIVITIES/ ANNOUNCEMENTS
The following activities are scheduled for 2024 and beyond

• Participation in the 2024 SCOR Annual Meeting in Qingdao, China from 16 to 18 October 2024.
• Organization of the next Joint Assembly with IAMAS and IACS in Busan, Republic of Korea, 20-25 July 2025.
• 29th IUGG General Assembly, July 2027, Incheon, Republic of Korea.