Greenhouse gas and aerosol emissions are increasingly recognized as a threat to the quality of life as well as to the economies of the world. This threat requires close observation, forecasting capabilities, and policy decisions. Accountable detection, attribution, and verification of greenhouse gas and aerosol sources and sinks are required. Such verification relies on the quantification of air-sea exchange of greenhouse gases and aerosols, both at the regional and global levels. In the wake of the Kyoto agreement, the political imperative for monitoring greenhouse gases is running well ahead of scientific understanding. The new international research initiative on the Surface Ocean-Lower Atmosphere Study (SOLAS, sponsored by IGBP/SCOR/CACGP/WCRP) aims to achieve quantitative understanding of key biogeochemical-physical interactions and feedbacks between the ocean and the atmosphere, while understanding how this coupled system affects and is affected by climate, weather and environmental change.
This award to Columbia University will provide travel and logistical support for sixteen U.S. students, three lecturers, and two technicians to participate in the 2nd International SOLAS Summer School to be held in 2005 (www.uea.ac.uk/env/solas/summerschool/). The School brings young researchers in contact with leading scientists of different components of SOLAS research. The school uses a theoretical framework, practical exercises, and laboratory experiments to promote an enhanced learning environment. Most importantly, the school provides the opportunity for young researchers interested in SOLAS science issues to meet one another and to form alliances capable of addressing the significant future challenges that face the field and society. It is our current new scientists who are most likely to meet the challenges of solving significant Earth system problems. For this reason, interaction between the US and other international scientific communities in this field must be strengthened and promoted. The school forges the necessary bonds between maturing scientists of different nationalities and backgrounds, which will be carried forward as these students become, themselves, leaders in the field.
