Lamont Weekly Report, December 18, 2009

It has been a crazy week in San Francisco - so many sessions and meetings get scheduled on top of one another - so it is inevitable that I miss about as many important events as I am able to attend.  But I did manage to make it to a few science sessions - oral and postal - and needless to say, saw many Lamonters.

The Alumni Association reception on Tuesday evening followed a good meeting of the Board, and was well attended despite the financial cost associated with consumption of alcohol. As always there were lots of old and new friends from all over the world there.

Probably the high point of the meeting for me was Richard Alley's Bjerknes Lecture on the history of CO2 levels... the low point - probably being mauled by NSF program managers at the Langseth oversight committee meeting.  And the most fun - undoubtedly the three donor visits that Barb Charbonnet had organized for me in the backwoods of Palo Alto.

We are hearing lots of strong and positive rumors about funding for two of our big Stimulus package infrastructure proposals.  Nothing official yet so I cannot say anything definite - but it may be that 2010 will be a very good year for Lamont. I got a good sense for how the overall oceans community is faring at an informal meeting that I convened on Wednesday afternoon of 6-7 of the Deans and Directors of the big institutions around the nation.  The lack of mechanisms to support infrastructure replacement and development (especially of the research vessel fleet), and worries about the 2011 Federal budget dominated the conversations.

On a more mundane note - Lamont was 100 per cent complete in its Effort Reporting requirements - thank you to everyone for their cooperation in getting this done. The system retains a few wrinkles I fear - thank you all for your patience.

And have a happy and safe holiday season.  I will be back home on the weekend.

Mike