| The International Marine Global Change Study (IMAGES) programme was initiated in 1995 as an international collaborative science programme aimed at the collection, analysis and interpretation of high quality paleo-climate data from the global ocean. The overarching goal is to develop a comprehensive understanding of the role of marine processes that influenced Earth’s climate during the past million years at time-scales relevant to human life and societal development. To further these aims IMAGES organises sea-going missions, thematic and regional working groups, workshops and conferences. In addition, IMAGES actively encourages, promotes, and supports the participation of early career scientists in its full range of activities, for example with ship-board opportunities (“University at sea“), access to advanced coring infrastructure, integration with research initiatives, and providing grants to support workshop and conference organisation/attendance. Particularly, scientific issues addressed by IMAGES have been (i) the role of ocean circulation in past climate changes, (ii) the role of marine biogeochemical cycles in past climate changes, (iii) the impact of past ocean changes on continental environments and human evolution and civilization, and (iv) developing novel methods (“proxies“) to quantify ocean variables and key processes that defined e.g. states of the ocean circulation and climate in the past.
As is the case for the IODP programme, IMAGES is in the process of identifying future scientific themes and objectives that should result in a new science plan. A first draft for an IMAGES II Science Plan has been developed during the last year, which makes it very timely to identify and discuss new goals and strategies in paleoclimate research that will be similar challenges for future ocean drilling and giant piston coring on a global scale. For this purpose, key questions identified in the actual draft of the IMAGES II scientific programme will be presented to foster discussion on mutual future scientific goals and for joint use of technical infrastructure in both programmes. |