Gotthilf Hempel (ed.): The Oceans and the Poles. Grand Challenges for European Cooperation. 381 pp. 93 figs., 10 tab., softcover, Jena, Stuttgart, New York, London, Paris, Tokyo, Gustav Fischer Verlag 1995. ISBN 3-334-61023, ISBN 1-56081-435-7. DM 98,–

✍ Scribed by John D. Gage

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1996
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 181 KB
• Volume: 81
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1434-2944
• DOI: 10.1002/iroh.19960810421

✦ Synopsis

The world's oceans and the polar ice caps together hold the overwhelming bulk of the water on this planet. However, their remoteness, inaccessibility and global scale sets them apart from terrestrial environments and renders an international cooperative approach necessary for their study in order to understand their r6le in gobal processes and Man's effect on them. The rapidly emerging role of Europe in coordinating and driving such international effort is sketched in the first introductory chapter by Professor HEMPEL which traces the roots of the European Committee on Ocean and Polar and Sciences, ECOPS, from the European Science Foundation and the Commission of European Communities DG XII. In the course of meetings over 5 years the dozen or so senior scientists making up the membership of ECOPS have identified fields of interest, and sketched out suitable approaches, that are particularly suited for closer European cooperation. The response of the scientific community was next obtained in order to refine the concepts and develop action plans for the implementation of Europewide research programmes. Four long-term projects for European cooperation have been developed in this mechanism: Operational Forecasting of the Oceans and Coastal Seas, Variability of the Deep-Sea Floor, The Arctic Ocean, and lastly the European Programme on Ice Coring in Antarctica (EPICA). These have become known as the ECOPS Grand Challenges. and this volume contains contributions from 45 invited scientists fleshing out these exciting new areas for joint research as reports from workshops and Euro-conferences, sponsored by the European Science Foundation, held previously at venues all over Europe. These were presented at a major Gtropecin Coilfrrence on Gmrid Chnllrriges in Ocean and Polur Science held in Bremen in September 1994. This meeting aimed to allow scientists and policy makers from all over Europe to interact in the formulation of long-term strategy and on the mechanisms in order to achieve the Grand Challenge concept.

The book provides a record of this unique meeting as the revised texts of the invited papers prepared for the Bremen conference, with a list of the posters from various ongoing areas of European cooperation, particularly the CEC MAST programme, together with text of the various "National Statements". The four Grand Challenges are presented as chapter themes each including several contributions describing them. Most particularly stress the new technology required for further scientific progress. Two additional chapter themes are presented: The Coastal Seas, and Biodiversity and Production in the Ocean. These were also identified as priority items for further development. Shrewdly, the second part of the conference focused on science policy, with representatives of national governments and supra-national bodies presenting statements of their view of the way ahead. These are also included. As such this attractively presented volume constitutes a research agenda in the ocean and polar sciences for future European cooperation over the next decade or so that has already achieved the cooperation of the scientific stakeholders. This agenda, hopefully, also has achieved the goodwill (if not guaranteed political commitment) of the national governments or funding agencies for scientific research to use ECOPS as an instrument to achieve internationally what individual countries recognise they would find it difficult or impossible to achieve nationally. As such ECOPS is not new, and follows in the footsteps of many successful international programmes, but which since the second world war have been largely American-led.