The Ocean Science Meeting (OSM) 2020 side meeting of the Northwestern Pacific Ocean Circulation and Climate Experiment (NPOCE), sponsored by the Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (IOCAS), was held in San Diego, United States on February 18, 2020. This meeting aims to discuss the outline of the Science Plan (SP) of NPOCE phase-II, especially the themes of Scientific Foci. 18 attendees from Australia, China, Korea, and the US attended this meeting on-site or remotely, including 13 NPOCE Scientific Steering Committee (SSC) members and 2 distinguished guests Wenju Cai as chair of CLIVAR SSG from CSIRO, Australia and Huijie Xue from University of Maine, US.

Fig. 1 Groupphoto of all participants

Fan Wang, vice-chair of NPOCE SSC, gave an opening remark to appreciate the continuous support of participants on behalf of Dunxin Hu, chair of NPOCE SSC and himself. Janet Sprintall chaired the meeting on-site as vice-chair of NPOCE SSC.

Fig.2 Meeting introduction by Janet Sprintall

Given the successful implementation of NPOCE-I in the field experiments and scientific studies in the tropical northwestern Pacific Ocean and Indonesian seas, the NPOCE-II SP aims to describe the Extension/Expansion of NPOCE-I and associated themes of Scientific Foci. Before this side meeting, Dunxin Hu, Fan Wang, Janet Sprintall and the NPOCE office drafted an outline of the NPOCE-II SP. Three major themes were proposed in the draft based on the overview of knowledge gaps in the ocean circulation and climate study in the northwestern tropical Pacific Ocean through the NPOCE-I. The draft provides a useful starting point for in-depth discussion, and participants expressed their opinions and proposed very useful suggestions on how to improve the themes of scientific foci as well as their implementation during the NPOCE-II.

Fig. 3 The discussion session

This meeting was very successful and will foster coordination and exchange on the joint efforts for drafting a perfect science plan of NPOCE-II.

Special Thanks:

Due to the novel coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, China, all Chinese NPOCE SSC members and the NPOCE office can’t attend the side meeting on-site. Special thanks to Dr. Xu CHEN from Florida State University, who assisted the logistic staff of this meeting on-site.