Ocean Observatories Initiative Team Kicks Off Events at 2012 Ocean Sciences Meeting

By ooistaff | February 21, 2012 |

Tim Cowles, Vice President & Director of Ocean Observing Programs, meets with visitors at the OOI booth during the 2012 Ocean Sciences meeting. Cowles and members of the OOI team will be on hand throughout the week to meet with members of the scientific community and provide updates on the OOI program. (Credit: Megan Gibney, OOI Program Management Office)

(Click to enlarge) Tim Cowles, Vice President & Director of Ocean Observing Programs, meets with visitors at the OOI booth during the 2012 Ocean Sciences meeting. Cowles and members of the OOI team will be on hand throughout the week to meet with members of the scientific community and provide updates on the OOI program. (Credit: Megan Gibney, OOI Program Management Office)

The Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) program this week is participating in the 2012 Ocean Sciences conference at Salt Lake City, Utah, with a variety of sessions, posters and information sharing opportunities.

In addition to scheduled scientific sessions, the OOI Team will hold a special discussion on three days to provide interested attendees with an update on the OOI and how they can become involved. That informational talk, Ocean Observatories Initiative: Information and Community Opportunities, will be offered from 12:30 p.m. to 2 p.m., on Tuesday, Feb. 21 and Thursday, Feb. 23 in Ballroom D and on Wednesday, Feb. 22, at that same time in Ballroom J.

“The Ocean Sciences meeting provides us with a great forum to share our progress on the OOI with the our colleagues and provide information to future users of OOI data on how to become involved now,” said Tim Cowles, Vice President & Director of Ocean Observing Programs at the Consortium for Ocean Leadership. “We look forward to a productive exchange of information throughout the week and will have a number of our project scientists on hand to answer questions about the OOI and the opportunities it will provide for research.”

Steven Ackleson, Senior Project Scientist for the OOI, will lead a discussion at Ocean Sciences on recent insights and the future for ocean observing. “The OOI is the single, largest, national investment in ocean observing within the careers of practicing oceanographers and will likely define the research activities of many ocean scientists for the next quarter of a century,” Ackleson said. “The Ocean Sciences Meeting gives us a chance to reflect on this and discuss ways of realizing the fullest potential of this new capability.”

In addition to the scheduled sessions, members of the OOI Team will be available throughout the week at the OOI Booth in the exhibit area Booth #59 to discuss aspects of the program.

Ocean Sciences is sponsored by The Oceanography Society, the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography and AGU. More than 4,000 attendees are anticipated to attend.

Please continue to visit the OOI Website and OOI Facebook and Twitter accounts for event coverage. Click here for a Full List of OOI Events at Ocean Sciences.