The VII Italian forum of Earth Science “GEOITALIA2009” will take place in Rimini (Palacongressi della Riviera di  Rimini) from the 9^th to the 11^th of September 2009.

The scientific programme of the event is  characterized by Symposia, Disciplinary sessions, workshops, short courses and round tables.

Dr. Simona Masina and prof. Stefano Pierini will take part to the Symposium entitled “Climate and Paleoclimate” and they will be the two conveners of the scientific session number 7 :  “The role of the ocean in past, present and future climate”.

The following text is the Abstract of the scientific session “The role of the ocean in past, present and future climate” :

 The oceans play a fundamental role in the climate system, acting on it through processes of heat storage and transport, through dynamical processes (sometimes intrinsically oceanic) over the various spatial and temporal scales, through variations of biomass distributions, and always interacting with the atmosphere through the air-sea interface with fluxes of heat, momentum, radiation, CO2 concentration, etc.. Modeling studies (from the most sophisticated climate models to process-oriented simulations), the analysis of paleoclimate proxies, in situ observations of both Eulerian and Lagrangian character, the analysis of remote sensing data (from microwave altimeters, synthetic aperture radars, radiometers, etc.) all contribute to define the role of the ocean in past, present and future climate system, and allow one to estimate the impact of different forcings on the physical state of the ocean and on its ecosystem.

In such a context, contributions of physical and interdisciplinary oceanography of both modeling and experimental character are welcome in this session. They can concern processes over all spatial and temporal scales, but preferentially with an emphasis on the role of the ocean in climate dynamics. Possible general topics are: the variability of the oceanic circulation and its interaction with the atmosphere; the variability of the physical and biogeochemical properties of water masses in connection with the various forcing mechanisms; the role of the ocean in paleoclimate and in future climatic scenarios. From a methodological point of view, contributions in which results of numerical simulations of different complexity are compared with experimental data are encouraged. As for the mainly experimental works, contributions based on innovative methods or on laboratory experiments are particularly welcome.