The OCCI significantly advanced its mission to understand the ocean’s pivotal role in climate change with two initiatives in 2002:
- We recovered Station W, our new Gulf Stream observing station near Bermuda-a strategic location for monitoring ocean circulation changes that affect regional and global climate. In its first year, Station W collected 300 profiles of temperature and salinity data at depths of 90 to 2,950 meters (297 to 9,735 feet).
- OCCI convened an Ocean Forum on Abrupt Climate Change, inviting to WHOI four leading scientists with a broad range of expertise as Visiting Summer Scholars. Together, the scholars and WHOI scientists assessed our state of knowledge on this issue and devised plans to launch future research.
OCCI supported four fellows in the second year of their terms: Ray Schmitt investigates changes in the hydrological cycle over the ocean and its impact on future ocean circulation and climate variability; Lloyd Keigwin reconstructs recent geological history of ocean circulation and climate change; Konrad Hughen pursues high-resolution reconstructions of past climate, ocean circulation, and atmospheric chemistry; and John Toole leads the Station W initiative.
The Institute also supported MIT/WHOI graduate student Rose Came and initiated five new research projects: a survey of seafloor locations near Station W for paleoclimate records; investigation of the transport of salt and fresh water between the tropics and high latitudes and its impact on ocean circulation and climate change; examination of ocean mixing in the Southern Ocean; studies of socio-economic impacts of the North Atlantic Oscillation; and development of a new geochemical method to obtain high-resolution climate records.
—William Curry, Institute Director
