My beach reading spot!
I’m feeling a bit guilty writing this with everyone in the UK still experiencing the wet wintery weather, as I’m in Honolulu, Hawaii at the 2014 Ocean Sciences Meeting. I arrived around midnight last Friday and spent Saturday morning relaxing on the edge of Waikiki beach looking out to sea, watching people go by and reading a book; and I’d recommend Mr Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan as a great story if you’re interested technology, cryptography or old books!
Ocean Sciences 2014 opened with a welcome reception on Sunday evening and an interesting key note address by Polynesian explorer Elizabeth Kapu’uwailani Lindsey entitled ‘Bringing the Wisdom of the “Elders” Together with Modern Science for the Future of the Environment’. During the evening I did try to try track down the three people I’m mentoring at this conference – Elaine, Guangming and Navid. However, as there are over 5,000 attendee’s there were a lot of people to search through!
I finally sat down with my mentees at breakfast on Monday morning. The meeting’s mentoring program is an interesting concept designed to help novice conference attendees get the most value out of their experience.
Yesterday we met up at Navid’s poster to discuss his work on modelling internal waves, at lunch we discussed Elaine’s poster on climate data services and tomorrow Guangming is presenting a talk on the turbidity maximum in Chesapeake Bay in the same session as I’m presenting my ocean colour atmospheric correction work. This is a great element about going to scientific conferences, meeting people to discuss their research and interests. Some are new acquaintances and some I’ve known for a long time. My first time attendance at this meeting (also in Hawaii) was in 2006.
Today I’ve also been to a session on particles in the coastal ocean, and this evening it was Philanthropic Investment in Ocean Research. Tomorrow I’ve got a really busy day as I’m speaking, I’ll give you an update on the second half of the conference next week!
A little addendum I noticed while finishing this post is that Satellite Applications Catapult yesterday published its response to UK Space Innovation and Growth Strategy Space Growth Action Plan. I’ve downloaded it, and it will form part of my next beach reading session!
