With an overarching objective to advance the impact of sciences on a global scale, the Ocean Sciences Meeting (OSM) is a biennial conference that connects international ocean sciences communities. It facilitates the sharing of knowledge and results, productive discussions through town halls and open mike Q&As, and the collaborative prioritisation of key challenges. The 2026 event was co-sponsored by the American Geophysical Union (AGU), the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO), and The Oceanography Society (TOS).
This year’s event was the first time OSM took place outside the United States and Glasgow, Scotland was a gracious host for over 6,500 attendees. The weeklong marathon of sessions, oral presentations, town halls, poster talks and plenty of discussions around stands in the exhibition hall was lively and excellent, or as they’d say in Glasgow: it was braw.
Scientists from the OceanICU consortium disseminated project work and results through posters and oral sessions. There was enthusiastic interest from visitors attending these talks and tuning into the project’s investigation to better understand the ocean carbon processes across a wide spectrum of topics and themes.
Following is a list of presenters sharing OceanICU work. The order does not reflect the OSM programme. They are presented here in thematic groups that support the Impact Clusters that OceanICU is organising its results around to best measure the project’s identified Key Performance Indicators.
Cluster One: Biology in the Carbon Cycle
Posters
Sophie Clayton (NOC) – Linking phytoplankton, particle size and POC flux: a global data synthesis
Hannah Haines (Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz-Center for Polar and Marine Research) – Future trends of net primary production are robust to choice of temperature function until 2100
Nauzet Hernandez (ULPG) – Regional Variability of Mesopelagic Microbial Respiration
Élodie Jacob (Aix Marseille Université-CNRS) – How Pressure Affects the Respiration and Lipid Composition of Vertically Migrating Copepods
Pauline le Coq (AMU – CNRS) – Effects of mesoscale features on mesopelagic dark carbon fixation and carbon budgets
Markel Gómez Letona, Xosé Antón Álvarez Salgado (IIM-CSIC) – Estimates of oxygen utilisation rates in the global mesopelagic ocean
Rebecca Millington (PML) – Modelling the role of zooplankton in the carbon cycle in the Northeast Atlantic
Anton Salgado (CSIS) – Mesopelagic carbon fluxes and respiration rates in the Cape Verde Frontal Zone – view the poster here
Paula Silvar (MI) – Evaluating the interactions between fishing scenarios and carbon fluxes in a shelf ecosystem
Tobias Strickmann (GEOMAR) – Using UVP In-situ Imaging to Estimate the Impact of Environmental Drivers and Intermediate Particle Maxima on Vertical Particle Fluxes
Çhristian Tamburini (MIO):
- Respiration in the Mesopelagic Ocean: Reconciling Ecological, Biogeochemical, and Model Estimates
- Mesopelagic respiration in the Northeast Atlantic: integrating multiple methods across a continuum of organic matter pool sizes
Aja Trebec (ULPCG) – Heterotrophic bacteria and phytoplankton response to dry and wet Saharan and Namibian desert dust deposition in the subtropical and tropical eastern Atlantic Ocean
Orals
Stephanie Henson (NOC) Global patterns in small organic particle loss in the mesopelagic
Helen Powley (PML) Challenging one-way coupled biogeochemical to fisheries modelling: new insights from a two-way coupled model representing photons to fisheries on the North-West European Shelf
Alex Poulton ((Heriot-Watt University) The Open Ocean Carbonate Pump: From Alkalinity to Ecology (and Back Again). This session explored different aspects related to pelagic carbonate biogeochemistry that underpin the magnitude and functioning of the carbonate pump. Perspectives from observations, experiments and modelling, using diverse techniques and technologies were encouraged in the curation of the programme to bring a multi-disciplinary approach and perspective to our understanding of the open ocean carbonate pump. Orals as part of the session including the following presentations from OceanICU colleagues:
- Ben Gustafson (Heriot-Watt University): Pelagic Calcifiers’ Global Contributions to Production and Deep-sea Export of CaCO₃
- Sarah Cryer (Heriot-Watt University): New Insights into Coccolithophore Physiology and Bloom Dynamics
- Miriam Seifert (AWI) Strong surface dissolution of CaCO₃ needed to improve alkalinity distribution in an ocean biogeochemistry model
Town Hall
Angela Martin of Natural England co-chaired a town hall: Net-Zero Ocean Harvesting: A Dialogue on Fisheries and Carbon. Held in the silent disco format with headsets, the gathering included presentations, interactive surveys and a lively Q&A.
Cluster Two: Global Carbon Cycle
Posters
Damien Couespel (NORCE) – Redistribution of Anthropogenic Carbon in the Atlantic Ocean in NorESM2 Simulations with 1/4° Resolution Ocean
Nico Lange (NORCE) – GLODAPv3 Methods
Siv Lauvset (NORCE) – GLODAPv3: a sneak peek of the new data synthesis product
Neill Mackay (EXE) – Decadal consistency across three independent ocean carbon sink estimates
Elaine McDonagh (NORCE) – Water Mass Changes in Florida Straits Since 2001
Orals
Houda Beghoura (UiB): Explicit quantification of the decadal ocean CO₂ sink using full-depth crossover analysis
Jerry Tjiputra (NORCE) The role of biological carbon pump in setting up preindustrial state and its implications for future climate change
Cluster Five: Industrial Impacts and Youth Engagement
Posters
Emma Dolmaire (University of Strathclyde) – Modelling the impact of fishing on the biological carbon pump in two different shelf-ecosystems with StrathE2E
Gennadi Lessin (PML) – Modelling the role of macrobenthic community structure in carbon processing in sediments and benthic-pelagic exchange
OSM26 provided OceanICU with great visibility for the work carried out to date and consortium members were pleased to see the interest in the topics they presented among the event attendees.