Support of Ocean Science Infrastructure
Infrastructural projects provide central coordination for the development and implementation of support structures to research activities conducted at national, regional, and global levels. Specific focuses can include developing and managing databases, building and coordinating communities, organizing workshops, developing standards, developing training materials and opportunities, and/or otherwise addressing methodological issues. These projects primarily facilitate the production of white papers, manuals/recommended practices, or data products. A project must adhere to SCOR’s policies and practices to be considered for sponsorship by SCOR.
Changing Ocean Biological Systems (COBS): This project evolved from SCOR WG 149 on "Changing Ocean Biological Systems (COBS): how will biota respond to a changing ocean?" to become a SCOR infrastructural project. The purpose of the project is to promote new experimental and statistical methods for assessing the effects of multiple environmental factors acting on organisms at the same time. The project resulted from the realization by scientists working on single environmental factors (e.g. pH, temperature, oxygen) that single-factor experiments were not realistic to changes occurring in the ocean.
GlobalHAB: SCOR is currently cofunding, with the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO, an infrastrutural program on harmful algal blooms called GlobalHAB. This program was an outcome of the SCOR/IOC research project called the Global Ecology and Oceanography of Harmful Algal Blooms (GEOHAB) project, which developed from SCOR/IOC WG 97 on Physiological Ecology of Harmful Algal Blooms.
IAPWS/SCOR/IAPSO Joint Committee on Seawater: SCOR served as a co-sponsor of the Joint Committee on Seawater through 31 December 2025. The Joint Committee on Seawater of the International Association for the Properties of Water and Steam (IAPWS), SCOR, and the International Association for the Physical Sciences of the Ocean (IAPSO) was formed following the completed work of SCOR/IAPSO WG 127 on Thermodynamics and Equation of State of Seawater, which created the Themodynamic Equation of State-2010 (TEOS-10). It was recognized at that time that progress needed to continue on the development of relationships between temperature and salinity of seawater outside the range of previously available equations.
International Ocean Carbon Coordination Project (IOCCP): Since 2005, SCOR has supported the International Ocean Carbon Coordination Project (IOCCP) jointly with IOC. IOCCP was formed following the SCOR-IOC CO2 Panel. IOCCP has played a critical role in facilitating the development of a global network of ocean carbon and biogeochemistry observations for research through technical coordination and communication services, allowing the compatibility and comparability of individual efforts, international agreements on standards and methods, and development of the ocean data products that can be integrated with the terrestrial, atmospheric, and human dimensions of the globally integrated Earth observing system.
Southern Ocean Observing System (SOOS): SCOR sponsors SOOS with the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR). SOOS brings together existing communities and observational efforts to enhance the coordinated collection of observations in the Souther Ocean, through the development of coordination networks and tools.