Program: NACP-OCB Coastal Synthesis

In late June 2008, the OCB Project Office sent out a call for participation in the Coastal Synthesis Activity as part of the North American Carbon Program (NACP) Interim Synthesis Activities. The objective of this activity is to stimulate the synthesis and publication of recent observational and modeling results on carbon cycle fluxes and processes along the North American continental margin. The current state of knowledge of the magnitude, spatial distribution, and inter-annual variability of carbon sources and sinks in coastal waters is incomplete. Thus, the goal of this activity is to synthesize individual, small-scale studies across broader spatial and temporal scales to improve quantitative assessments of the North American coastal carbon cycle. Because the coastal oceans have important and complex linkages with terrestrial, atmospheric, and open ocean biogeochemical cycles, we encourage the participation of researchers focused on both organic and inorganic carbon, as well as nitrogen and phosphorous cycle topics related to carbon balance and related issues such as hypoxia impacts on continental margins.

Planning for the coastal synthesis activity was initiated during a breakout session at the 2008 OCB Summer Science Workshop. The proposed coastal synthesis activity is initially broken into five U.S. geographical sub-regions (Atlantic Coast, Pacific Coast, Gulf Coast, Arctic Coast, and Laurentian Great Lakes), with leads identified for each region. Researchers were encouraged to consider ongoing projects and think about how those projects might relate to one or more of the regional syntheses. Additional information available at the NACP Web site (http://www.nacarbon.org/cgi-bin/working_groups/wg.pl) includes a list of active NACP Interim Synthesis activities and working groups.

The majority of data sets uploaded for this project will be synthesis data sets, representing an integration of previously compiled data from the various sub-regions.

Related Links:

NACP Coastal Synthesis Web Site (includes regional links)