We would like to let you know that the workshop report from the '2^nd Air-Sea Gas Flux: Progress and Future Prospects' workshop is now available to download from HERE. The scientific workshop, held in September 2016 in Brest, France, was organized by the OceanFlux Greenhouse Gases Evolution project as a forum to bring the international and interdisciplinary air-sea gas flux scientific community together to present recent advances, report results from key initiatives and importantly to identify new goals, challenges and opportunities.

The participants discussed among other things, the current state of the marine component of the global carbon observing system, and the need for the 'flux community' to use standard techniques, data formats and common tools, e.g. binning tools that are used and/or needed by communities measuring carbon dioxide fluxes (Surface Ocean CO₂ Atlas - SOCAT) and nitrous oxide/methane fluxes (MarinE MethanE and NiTrous Oxide - MEMENTO). 

The Workshop

106 participants from 18 countries and 5 continents attended the four day workshop. The key focal point of the workshop was the synergistic use of models, in situ and remote sensing data and techniques for studying, and furthering this important area of climate research. The report includes an overview of the workshop, key conclusions from oral presentations, and minutes and conclusions from the open discussion sessions. 

The open discussion sessions within the workshop allowed areas of scientific importance to be debated and the identification of new opportunities. Topics discussed included the potential for multi-agency experiments, the need for fiducial reference measurements and the need for continued cross-disciplinary collaboration including the sharing of tools. These discussions took place during and at the end of the workshop, and have provided clear avenues for future work, that fit within the International Surface Ocean and Lower Atmosphere Study (SOLAS) scientific plans, aims and priorities, whilst also being relevant for agencies like the European Space Agency to support.

Project and Workshop Background

The European Space Agency (ESA) and the SOLAS community came together in 2010 to support a new initiative in this area and the OceanFlux Greenhouse gas projects arose (http://www.oceanflux-ghg.org). At the same time, there have been enormous efforts internationally on collecting and collating data, strengthening and organising the measurement of dissolved gases (e.g. by LDEO and SOCAT) and exploring new methods of measuring and modelling the transfer processes and exchange coefficients.

In 2013, the first Air-sea Gas Fluxes workshop was held (http://www.oceanflux-ghg.org/Workshop/Workshop2013). The workshop was a great success and the participants identified the need for this interdisciplinary community to meet again in the future. Many advances have been made since 2013, so the project team invited the community back to a second international workshop in France in September 2016 to present recent advances and identify future goals and prospects. Importantly much of the work and advances that were presented in 2016 were identified as opportunities and challenges at the first workshop that was held in 2013.