The Global Coastal Ocean: Interdisciplinary Regional Studies and Syntheses

Abstract

Coastal zones are where land, rivers, atmosphere, seas, sediments, and biota meet, and thus where spatial and temporal heterogeneity is substantial. This volume of The Sea complements and supplements volumes 10 and 11, as well as Part B of Volume 14, which deal generally with the physical oceanography of global coastal oceans, and Volume 13, which examines multiscale interdisciplinary processes on sediment, biogeochemical, and ecosystem dynamics. Because of extreme complexity, however, analyzing and synthesizing in an interdisciplinary manner observations from global coastal oceans is difficult. Because most worldwide observation systems are complicated, many global programs, such as the System for Analysis, Research and Training for Global Change Research (START), the Global Carbon Project (GCP), and the Monsoon Asia Integrated Regional Study (MAIRS), have all promoted regional research for achieving the final goal of global synthesis. This volume takes the same approach.