Jonas Löb

The 27th International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG) General Assembly was held July 8-18 at the Palais des Congrès in Montréal, Quebec, Canada. The International Association for the Physical Sciences of the Oceans (IAPSO) is one of eight Associations of the IUGG which, in turn, is one of the 40 scientific Unions and Associations presently grouped within the International Science Council (ISC). In the frame of the IAPSO I was able to present, right in the beginning of the conference, a talk in the session “P04a – Mixing Processes in the Ocean” entitled “Low Mode Internal Wave Energy Fluxes in a Tidal Beam“. The talk worked out nicely, and even if I was extremely excited, it felt great to talk about my research and my latest results to all the experts in the room.

In the evening of the same day I participated in an early career event organized by IAPSO to set up a new network for early career scientists in the field of physical oceanography. It was a nice evening with food and drinks where I got to know serval other early career scientists from countries all over the world. It was also a good opportunity to have a chat with members from the IAPSO executive committee.
On Wednesday, after the sessions I went to the opening ceremony where foods and drinks were served. This was another good opportunity for an informal chat. On Saturday after all sessions were finished several awards for outstanding science were handed out to the enthusiastic winners followed by another reception with snacks and drinks.

Beside the overall very good talks the conference had a combined poster and exhibiter hall in which coffee was served during breaks. The conference also offered a variety of other activities such as workshops and field trips. Throughout the conference I attended to a variety of oceanographic sessions such as “The Meridional Overturning Circulation: Mean State and Variability”, “Oceanic Boundary Current Systems”, “The Southern Ocean: Where Ocean, Ice and Atmosphere Meet”, “Tides of the Oceans, Atmosphere, Solid Earth, Lakes and Planets”. During the conference, I had a chance to meet up with one of my thesis committee members, Dr. Zhongxiang Zhao from the University of Washington, who gave me a lot of good advises for my future research and some further insights on his current work.

It was a great and successful conference with a lot of very interesting talks. It helped me getting inspired with new ideas for my PhD project and motivated me to continue my current work. It was furthermore the perfect place to see again all the import researchers in my field of science. I had a great time in Montréal which is a great city and always worth a visit. I want to say thanks a lot to GLOMAR for providing the funding for this conference.