Preface
Task of the Marine Information Research center (MIRC) is to design new methods and techniques in order to reinforce the Japan Oceanographic Data Center (JODC), and to produce various high quality data products for various users. MIRC will join International Cooperative Programs on oceanic data and information exchanges. In addition, MIRC hopes to contribute enlightening and popularization of oceanographic knowledge, and held Marine Information Symposia in Kobe May, 1998, in Tokyo in December, 1998, and in Nagoya in May, 1999. In November, 1999, the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC), UNESCO held the International Conference on the International Oceanographic Data and Information Exchange in the Western Pacific (IODE-WESTPAC) 1999 (ICIWP'99) in Langkawi, Malaysia in collaboration with the Japan Oceanographic Data Center (JODC). MIRC supported this conference, and took an initiative, especially, to organize the symposium “Seminar on Oceanography and Marine Science” which was held just prior to the official “Workshop on IODE Activities in the WESTPAC Region”. This symposium would be considered as one of the MIRC programs relating both to its popularization activities and to its international cooperative activities.
The conference achieved a great success, and the attendants of the conference, especially from the developing countries, appreciated new knowledge achieved in the symposium. In this MIRC Science Report (NO. 6), the outline of the conference is reported, and four of the important keynote lectures relating to climate change and oceanographic data management are introduced.
January, 2000
Yutaka Nagata
Director of MIRC
