North Pacific Marine Science
Organization 15th Annual Meeting
The AFSC was strongly represented at the 15th annual meeting of the North Pacific Marine Science Organization (PICES) held 13-22 October 2006 in Yokohama, Japan. PICES is an intergovernmental organization with membership from Canada, the People’s Republic of China, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the Russian Federation, and the United States. The ten AFSC participants were Pat Livingston, Phil Mundy, Anne Hollowed, Bernard Megrey, Jeffrey Napp, Kerim Aydin, Libby Logerwell, Sarah Gaichas, Paul Spencer, and Kristin Cieciel.
The theme of this year’s meeting was “Boundary Current Ecosystems.” Approximately 450 scientists attended, with 75-100 from the United States. There were 15 workshops, 18 conference sessions, and 22 committee and subcommittee meetings. There was discussion to extend the PICES focal area to include the South Pacific as there is growing need for considerations of basin-wide phenomena, comparisons of the south and north Pacific Ocean ecosystems, as well as potential benefits from continuing and enhancing cooperation on such topics as ecosystem-based management and ocean forecasting of the entire Pacific Ocean.
A major work of PICES is its future integrative science program (FISP) to develop the next major science program of PICES. FISP will build upon the successful Climate Change and Carrying Capacity (CCCC) program. A major goal is to develop a science program that will integrate science from all the standing science committees. A tentative title of an integrative project is FUTURE: Forecasting and Understanding Trends, Uncertainty and Responses of the North Pacific [Marine] Ecosystem. A multinational writing team was formed and a plan development workshop is scheduled for spring 2007 in Yokohama, Japan.
