1. Press Conference Schedule
2. Participate by Phone: Dial-In Instructions
3. Attention PIOs: Sending Press Releases to Ocean Sciences Meeting
4. News Media Registration Information
5. News Media Registration Form
6. Who's Coming

Note: This advisory does not repeat important information from Media Advisory 3: http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/prrl/prrl0601.html

1. Press Conference Schedule

The following press conferences are planned for 2006 Ocean Sciences Meeting. There may be changes before, or during, the meeting: press conferences may be added or dropped; participants and/or emphasis may change. Any changes subsequent to this media advisory will be announced in the Press Room at the meeting.

Many research topics are presented in a series of sessions. At the end of each press conference description below, only the first session in the series is listed.

Climate Change Impacts on Ocean Ecosystems
Monday, 20 February
0900h

The Bering Sea supports vast populations of marine birds and mammals and provides almost half of the U.S. catch of fish and shellfish. As a subarctic sea, it is particularly sensitive to shifts in climate. During the last decade, scientists have observed a marked decrease in the amount of sea ice, an increase in ocean temperature, and shifts in the distribution of various biota, e.g., a northward shift in spawning locations for snow crab and feeding grounds of gray whales, a delay in timing of the spring bloom, and declines in zooplankton biomass. The biological effects of ocean acidification resulting from increased atmospheric carbon dioxide are not completely understood. Scientists have found a synergistic effect between light and elevated carbon dioxide that can have biocidal effects to marine phytoplankton. The effect appears to be due to carb
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Contact: Harvey Leifert
hleifert@agu.org
202-777-7507
American Geophysical Union
7-Feb-2006