Heating and cooling

The global ocean has been warming up as a consequence of anthropogenic, or human-made, climate change, with 90% of the anthropogenic warming stored in the world’s ocean, leading to an increase in ocean heat and sea level rise.

From 2003 to 2012, however, the surface temperature of the Earth experienced what is known as a global surface warming slowdown. Instead of heating up rapidly, as would be expected as a consequence of global warming, the global surface temperatures instead stayed flat.

Rather than this being proof that global warming isn’t happening, University of Delaware Professor Xiao-Hai Yan showed in previous research that the heat wasn’t simply disappearing and the ocean wasn’t magically cooling. Instead, the heat was being redistributed, specifically, to deeper layers of the ocean and especially the oceans in the Southern Hemisphere.

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A jointly organized Symposium (XMAS) in 2021

The Fifth Xiamen Symposium on Marine Environmental Sciences (XMAS-V) will be organized online on January 11th–14th, 2021.

XMAS-V will focus on How Multidisciplinary Sciences Can Serve a Sustainable and Healthy Ocean. College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment, University of Delaware (UD) is one of the co-sponsors and UD faculty Prof. Fabrice Veron was one of the Scientific Advisory Committee.

More information can be found at: https://melmeeting.xmu.edu.cn/xmas5/index.asp.

A new Joint Training Program

The UD College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment and State Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Science (MEL) launched a new program, International Joint Training Program, in 2020 June. The program supports students and faculty to study or visit UD as joint training Ph.D. students, postdoctoral fellows and visiting scholars.

Paper published in Nature Geoscience

A scientific paper titled “Chesapeake Bay acidification buffered by spatially decoupled carbonate mineral cycling” has been published in Nature Geoscience. This work was done by research teams from University of Delaware and Xiamen University.

Dr. Jianzhong Su, the first author, joined the UD-XMU Dual Ph.D. Degree Program in Oceanography in 2016 and was advised by Prof. Minhan Dai in XMU and Prof. Weijun Cai in UD. Jianzhong studied in UD from 2016-2019 and was awarded doctoral degrees in both universities in 2006 June.

Publication reference

Jianzhong Su, Wei-Jun Cai*, Jean Brodeur, Baoshan Chen, Najid Hussain, Yichen Yao, Chaoying Ni, Jeremy Testa, Ming Li, Xiaohui Xie, Wenfei Ni, K. Michael Scaboo, Yuanyuan Xu, Jeffrey Cornwell, Cassie Gurbisz, Michael S. Owens, George G. Waldbusser, Minhan Dai and W. Michael Kemp. Chesapeake Bay acidification buffered by spatially decoupled carbonate mineral cycling. Nature Geoscience. 2020. DOI: 10.1038/s41561-020-0584-3.

Linkhttps://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-020-0584-3#citeas

News: https://mel.xmu.edu.cn/info/1012/5094.htm

UD partnership with China’s Xiamen University creates opportunities for students

Angela Ditri had never been to China. She had never given a presentation of her research, and certainly not one in a hall that could seat hundreds.

But the master’s student in physical ocean science and engineering got to start 2019 by doing both, adding the prestige of presenting at an international conference to her resume and learning a bit about the coastal city of Xiamen in the southeast of China in the process.

“The fact that I was able to stand up there and get through it in front of all those people — it has always been one of my big fears — I’m really glad that I had this opportunity. I feel accomplished,” Ditri said. “Dr. Yan was really supportive … He is very kind, and he was so excited for me to come here and really pushed me to give this presentation.”

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XMU & UD co-organized XMAS-III in Xiamen

With the overarching theme “The Changing Ocean Environment: From a Multidisciplinary Perspective,” the Third Xiamen Symposium on Marine Environmental Sciences (XMAS-III, http://mel.xmu.edu.cn/conference/3XMAS/) was held at Xiamen University’s Science and Art Center from January 9th to 11th, 2017.

The symposium consisted of 4 general sessions, 9 special sessions and 2 workshops, covering physical oceanography, marine biogeochemistry, biological oceanography, and marine ecotoxicology along with workshops for emerging topics in marine environmental sciences.

UD faculty Dr. Wei-Jun Cai was one of the conveners of General Session 2: Marine & estuarine biogeochemistry. Wenfang Lu who is involved in the UD-XMU dual PhD program, and UD faculty Dr. Xiao-Hai Yan both gave oral presentations at the meeting.

The conference attracted more than 620 scientists and graduates from 150 institutions covering 21 countries and regions, including the USA, South Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. A total of 211 oral talks were scheduled and 308 posters were presented during the conference.

In addition to oral and poster sessions, the conference organized several other activities:an Open Discussion Session on Publication Practice in JGR-Oceans, Student Activities, and Women in Science Salon, which attracted large audiences.

The XMAS series meeting was initiated by the State Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Science (MEL, http://mel.xmu.edu.cn/en) of Xiamen University. XMAS-III was co-sponsored by the College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment, University of Delaware, together with other institutions. More details of the meeting can be found at: http://mel.xmu.edu.cn/en/supervisefile.asp?id=670. The fourth iteration, XMAS 2019, will be held in Xiamen 2019.

The 2nd XMU-UD Symposium was held in Xiamen University

During XMU’s 93rd anniversary celebration, a 17 member UD delegation led by UD’s Provost Dr. Domenico Grasso arrived in Xiamen to attend “University of Delaware Day” at Xiamen University from April 2-3, 2014.

As one of the events celebrating the anniversary, the 2nd XMU-UD Symposium was held in Zhou Long Quan Building at XMU’s new Xiang’an Campus on April 3rd. UD delegates in attendance included Dr. Nancy Targett—Dean of the College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment (CEOE), Dr. Mohsen Badiey–Deputy Dean of CEOE, Dr. Xiao-Hai Yan—Director of the Center for Remote Sensing, CEOE, Dr. James Falk–Delaware Sea Grant Associate Director and Marine Advisory Service Director, and CEOE professors Dr. Matthew Oliver and Dr. Arthur Trembanis. Professors in attendance from XMU included Dr. Minhan Dai—Director of the Faculty of Earth Science and Technology and Director of the State Key Lab of Marine Environmental Science (MEL), Dr. Kejian Wang—Dean of the College of Ocean and Earth Sciences (COE), and Dr. Shaoling Shang—Associate Dean of COE, and some other faculty members. Invited guest Dr. Jeffrey Simmen–Executive Director of the Applied Physics Laboratory, University of Washington also attended this symposium.

The symposium consisted of a few scientific presentations and discussion sessions summarizing past and current activities and achievements so far. They also further discussed promotion of the Joint-CRM and dual doctoral degree program, and both sides reached an agreement on a long-term collaborative plan on marine sciences between UD and XMU. As Dean Targett said, an exciting and inspiring idea could always come out after a brain storming session with Director Minhan Dai.

The first UD-XMU Symposium was held in Feb 2012 in UD, with ten XMU faculty and students in attendance . More information can be found at http://www.joint-crm.org/news/ud-and-xmu-scientists-get-together-detaile….

First UD-XMU Dual PhD Student Passed Dissertation Defense

The first doctoral student in the UD-XMUDual Ph.D. Degree Program in Oceanography, Zhaoyun Chen,defended his dissertation on Tuesday, Nov. 26 (Monday evening, Nov. 25, US EST), 2013 in Zhou Longquan Building on Xiang’an Campus, Xiamen University. Dean of College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment in UD,Dr. Nancy Targett and Associate Dean of College of Ocean and Earth Sciences in XMU, Dr. Shaoling Shang made opening remarks before the defense. The faculty and students in the University of Delaware participated in the defense through the online video conference connection. Two committee members, Dr. Wenzhou Zhang who is visiting the University of Maine and Dr. Young-Heon Jo who is visiting South Korea, also connected to the defense room online.

There are totally 5 XMU students who have formally matriculated in the dual degree program in both universities so far. Chen’s successful defense demonstrates that Xiamen University has made exciting progress on high level education, and also cooperation between XMU and UD is efficient. As Dean Targett remarked, “With the defense today, we mark another milestone in our evolving partnership with Xiamen University.”

University of Delaware (UD) is Xiamen University (XMU) closed partner institution in the U.S., with a formal agreement supporting research collaboration. In 2008, two universities established the Joint Institute for Coastal Research and Management (Joint-CRM). The universities created a dual doctoral degree program in oceanography in 2010, in which several XMU and UD students are participating.

Chen was awarded a 2012 Chinese Ph.D. National Scholarship. He has three published first-autho rpaper sin SCI (Science Citation Index) journals and one additional manuscript ready to be submitted from his Ph.D. study. His dissertation is titled “Coastal Upwelling Study: Observations, Dynamic Analysis and Modelling”.

Chen’s UD dissertation committee includes:

Xiao-Hai Yan, UD Chair

Yuwu Jiang, XMU member

Young-Heon Jo, UD member

Wenzhou Zhang, XMU member

 

Additional defense committee to meet XMU requirement:

QuananZheng, University of Maryland, XMU Defense Committee Chair

Jianyu Hu, XMU, member

Shaoling Shang, XMU member

Yu Zhang, XMU member

Young-Heon Jo, UD member

Wenzhou Zhang, XMU member

Zhaoyun Chen becomes first PhD candidate in dual degree program

Student Zhaoyun Chen has just past his PhD oral qualifying exam and become the first PhD candidate in the UD-XMU dual Oceanography PhD Program. Zhaoyun is jointly supervised by UD Prof. Xiao-Hai Yan and XMU Prof. Yuwu Jiang. He studied in UD from September 2009 to March 2010. His research mainly focuses on coastal upwelling using tools of hydrographic survey, remote sensing, model and theoretical analysis. UD Profs. Xiao-Hai Yan and Young-Heon Jo, and XMU Profs. Yuwu Jiang and Wenzhou Zhang participated in his oral qualifying exam held in Xiamen on March 28, 2013.

Zhaoyun was awarded 2012 Chinese PhD National Scholarship. One of his papers was published in Continental shelf research, another two are under revision and will be published soon.