Twelve faculty and research scientists and three graduate students from the Department of Oceanography in the College of Geosciences will participate in a three-day workshop on Climate Change and Coastal Oceans at the Ocean University of China in Qingdao, October 26-28.

The workshop is part of an ongoing initiative between the College of Geosciences and Ocean University that includes offering a joint Ph.D. degree in oceanography between the two institutions. Six Ocean University students supported by the Chinese Scholarship Fund arrived at Texas A&M in August to work on their doctorates here. More students will be interviewed for this program after the workshop.

The College of Geosciences is committed to offering study abroad opportunities in China to help its students understand the global context in which they will work. Currently, students in the College come from more than 30 different countries and 37% of its graduate students are international.

The Climate Change and Coastal Oceans workshop being held in Qingdao will focus on the far-reaching challenges society faces due to the realities of climate change. Experts in the areas of Coastal Ocean Processes, Biogeochemistry of Large River Dominated Margins, and Climate Change Prediction will meet to formulate a research strategy to assess how climate change has impacted the coastal ocean and predict the coastal ocean response to future change scenarios.

The workshop will focus on two large river dominated coastal environments: the Mississippi-Atchafalaya River System and the Changjiang Estuary. Numerous research parallels exist between the impacts of outflow from the Changjiang and Mississippi Rivers on the East China Sea and Gulf of Mexico, respectively. Both basins are heavily populated, and natural processes have been disrupted by dam construction, land use and land cover change, and other factors.

At the end of the workshop in Qingdao, participants hope to have formed focused research groups based on expertise and research interests, identified viable study topics with testable hypotheses for each group, developed detailed outlines for research proposals, and agreed on action plans for the completion of each proposal, including writing assignments and deadlines.

Participating from the College of Geosciences are Dr. Steven DiMarco, Dr. Antonietta Quigg, Dr. Piers Chapman, Dr. Luis Cifuentes, Dr. Björn Kjerfve, Dr. Thomas Bianchi, Dr. Dan Thornton, Dr. Heath Mills, Dr. Ping Chang, Dr. Henry Seidel, Dr. Jen-Shan Hsieh, Dr. Jean Ann Bowman, and Oceanography graduate students Rick Smith, Brandi Reese, and Kelly Cole.

The workshop is sponsored by Texas A&M and the College of Geosciences, the National Science Foundation, and the Ocean University of China.

The College of Geosciences is also developing key research initiatives with other Chinese partners. Faculty have collaborative projects with counterparts at various institutions in China including the China Agricultural University, China University of Geosciences, Chinese Academy of Science, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and Xiamen University.

Key to this overall initiative is the development of proposals to support international educational experiences for graduate students such as applying for funds from the National Science Foundation’s “Developing Global Scientist and Engineers” grant program.

For more information contact Steve DiMarco at sdimarco@tamu.edu, Tom Bianchi at tbianchi@tamu.edu, Ping Chang at ping@ocean.tamu.edu, or Carol Trono, College of Geosciences, at (979) 845-0910, email ctrono@tamu.edu.