Over the last two weeks, the SCOPE team co-delivered the Second Ocean Carbon From Space Workshop with the European Space Agency (ESA), NASA, JAXA, EUMETSAT.
The main objective of the workshop was to bring together the scientific community to address key gaps, challenges, and opportunities in ocean carbon research. The workshop supports progress towards an integrated approach for characterising the ocean carbon cycle using field and satellite observations as well as ecosystem models and advances our understanding of variability in the ocean carbon cycle across space and time.
The workshop covered five themes:
- Improving observations through algorithm development and validation, including uncertainty estimation and climate-quality datasets
- Understanding the physical and biological processes that underpin the ocean carbon cycle
- Addressing the impact of climate change on the ocean carbon cycle, including extreme events
- Closing the ocean and global carbon budget
- Informing climate mitigation and adaptation strategies, including the global stocktake
The online component of the workshop (24-26 November 2025) attracted 187 participants from 37 countries across the world and featured key note, oral and poster presentations as well as discussion sessions covering the five key themes.
Highlights from the online discussions informed the in-person component of the workshop hosted at the International Ocean Colour Science (IOCS) Meeting in Darmstadt (1-5 December 2025).
At IOCS, there was a keynote ‘Aquatic Carbon from Space’ by Bob Brewin; a Panel discussion on ‘Ocean carbon: Policy, adaptation and mitigation; and a Breakout workshop on ‘Ocean Carbon from Space’. The breakout workshop attracted ~80 participants and those discussions shaped the recommendations to the International Ocean Colour Coordinating Group (IOCCG), the space agencies and the research community for the continuation of ocean carbon research from space.
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