Division of Ocean Sciences - Fall/Winter 2001 Newsletter
NSF 02-055
(Replaces NSF 01-127)

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Program News

Biological Oceanography / Chemical Oceanography / Physical Oceanography / Marine Geology and Geophysics / Ocean Drilling Program / Education / Ocean Technology and Interdisciplinary Coordination / Oceanographic Instrumentation and Technical Services

Chemical Oceanography

During the past six months, there have been a number of developments at NSF that should be of interest to the ocean chemistry community. Although many others may be found on the NSF web site, the following should be of particular interest.

US JGOFS Synthesis and Modeling Project (SMP)

The final proposal cycle for the US JGOFS Program (under program announcement NSF 01-103) began in August 2001, with the arrival of 14 proposals for the peer review panel held during the first week of December 2001. The CO and BO programs plan to combine resources to make four or five awards totaling approximately $2 million. Awards will be announced by the middle of January 2002.

Integrated Carbon Cycle Research Program (ICCR)

In FY 2002, the Directorate of Geosciences expects to put $11 million into ICCR to inaugurate a new decade of global carbon cycle research at NSF (under NSF 02-016). Approximately half of this total will be directed to ocean-related research (ocean, sea-air, land-sea) and half to terrestrial carbon studies (land, land-air, land-sea). The goal of ICCR is to achieve a process-level quantitative understanding of the major reservoirs, transformations, and exchanges of carbon within and among the terrestrial, marine, and atmospheric systems of Earth. The proposal deadline for ICCR is March 5, 2002.

Biocomplexity in the Environment — Coupled Biogeochemical Cycles (CBC)

The FY 2002 CBC competition (under NSF 02-010) affords an excellent opportunity for marine chemists and biogeochemists to form collaborative multidisciplinary alliances to study complex interactions between organisms and the environment. Successful full-scale research projects may be funded for up to $400,000 per year for five years. Additionally, a limited number of small awards (< $100K) will be made to support workshops, symposia, and small pilot studies, or to support the building of international and/or interdisciplinary research teams. Approximately $16 million will be available for CBC in FY 2002. In the previous CBC competition, proposals from marine scientists were among the most highly rated, no doubt reflecting our community’s long experience of teamwork on interdisciplinary problems. The proposal deadline for CBC is February 20, 2002.

Opportunities On the Horizon

Other funding opportunities for ocean chemists are developing on the horizon. Within the next twelve months, we hope to release an FY 2003 program announcement for carbon cycle studies in the North Atlantic Basin that would be coordinated with corresponding activities sponsored by NOAA and NASA and consonant with the goals of the U.S. Carbon Cycle Science Plan. The Ocean Carbon Working Group, chaired by Dr. Cindy Lee at SUNY-Stony Brook, is assisting the Division of Ocean Sciences with the planning.

The CO Program is also working with other programs in the Division of Ocean Sciences to develop a partnership between NSF and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) to support cutting-edge research into the relationships between oceans and human health (OHH). The results of an NSF-NIEHS roundtable meeting of OHH experts convened in December 2002, will be presented to the ocean sciences community at a special session on Thursday, February 14, 2002, at the Ocean Sciences Meeting in Honolulu.

For further information on any of the items above, please feel free to contact any of us in the CO Program.

Don Rice (drice@nsf.gov)
Simone Metz (simetz@nsf.gov)
Peter Milne (pmilne@nsf.gov)