SOLAS 3.0: 2026-2035: Science Plan and Organisation

Over the last two decades, the Surface Ocean-Lower Atmosphere Study (SOLAS) has created and sustained international scientific collaborations that have discovered, verified, and quantified the ocean-atmosphere connections critical to controlling the marine biogeochemical cycles that regulate climate and global change. With thousands of member scientists associated with National and Regional Networks in 34 countries and regions to date, 33 members from 21 different countries serving on early career and scientific steering committees in 2025, as well as an International Project Office (IPO) to coordinate activities, SOLAS is the main international science organisation coordinating the knowledge exchange and research activities related to the ocean-atmosphere boundary. Leveraging sponsorship from the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR), Future Earth, the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP), and the international Commission on Atmospheric Chemistry and Global Pollution (iCACGP), the SOLAS project coordinates, organises, creates, and sponsors opportunities for training, scientific exchange, and participation in cutting edge global activities related to the ocean-atmosphere interface. In this way, SOLAS makes connections that ensure the gains made from discovery science research are channelled into appropriate assessments of climate and environmental solutions and that capacity-building aligns with research needs. Further, SOLAS provides a voice that amplifies the collective expertise of scientists to more effectively advise and influence high-level policy involving air-sea interactions. The SOLAS 3.0 Science Plan is meant to inspire, organise, and provide the community leverage for ideas that maximise their own funding and contributions to the advancement of SOLAS-related science. It is built from strong community input of ideas for potential inclusion that were then vetted and assembled by over 40 co-authors into topics that will make critical impact into the next decade of research and engagement. These are purposely not ranked as to their importance with the aim of best engaging a diverse international community that will then prioritise their activities within the framework of SOLAS 3.0 to maximise funding and support. The plan is structured around three overarching objectives that integrate its three core sections. This reflects an expansion of the SOLAS project’s central focus on critical air-sea research and includes greater involvement in community building and skill development. While not prescribing specific societal solutions that involve the air-sea interface, SOLAS 3.0 also adds a focus on using these efforts to inform educated and balanced considerations of societal responses to climate and environmental change. A very brief summary of these foci and their respective objectives is provided below. Discovery Science To achieve a quantitative understanding of the key biogeochemical-physical interactions and feedbacks between the ocean and atmosphere and to establish how this coupled system affects and is affected by Earth’s rapidly changing global climate. Science Towards Solutions To leverage expertise and new scientific discoveries relating to air-sea interactions in efforts to inform activities aimed at mitigating or adapting to climate and environmental change, and thus improve the assessment of potential outcomes of such efforts on global, regional, and local environmental scales. Scientific Community and Skill Development To educate, engage, and connect the next generation of ocean-atmosphere researchers, advocate for equitable access to data and tools, and promote the integration and global coordination of science across the air-sea interface. Entering its third decade, SOLAS stands at the intersection of science and society, as the world is faced with major challenges related to a rapidly changing climate. With the expertise in air-sea processes fostered to date, SOLAS is in an exceptional position to advance the integration of the oceanographic and atmospheric scientific communities and to advise on essential mitigation and adaptation strategies, linking Earth system knowledge to major societal issues. The expanded emphasis in SOLAS 3.0 to leverage successful research to assess environmental action represents an exciting new element that will engage and widen the SOLAS community and its global impact. Given the connected nature of the SOLAS 3.0 objectives, some topics and linkages are broadly relevant. To highlight these key opportunities for interconnections, two types of boxes are located within the text: Cross-cutting Boxes (1–7) emphasise important interconnected themes that will require linked activities for full consideration, while Extremes Boxes (1–5) explore how multiple SOLAS-related science topics intersect with recent extreme ocean and atmospheric events that have had and will likely continue to have significant societal impact. SOLAS currently provides a strong and well-established foundation on which to build the next decade of internationally integrated community research. SOLAS will maintain its proven success that grows from constant attention to adapting, developing, advancing, and integrating technological innovations in field measurements, laboratory methods, and high-performance computing, all contributing to the SOLAS 3.0 Toolbox (see Section 2.3.3). These efforts will strengthen and broaden global appreciation and capacity for essential ocean-atmosphere research, much of which is relevant to potential solutions being considered as societal responses to our rapidly changing climate. While many existing community-building efforts and organisational structures within SOLAS are very successful and will be maintained, new initiatives and approaches will be adopted to maximise future success. The basic operations and future paths of SOLAS will continue to be guided by rotating leadership from a diverse Scientific Steering Committee (SSC) and Early Career Scientist Committee (ECSC), a growing group of national and regional representatives, supported by an integrated IPO (staff currently sited in China and India). SOLAS will call for Task Group proposals, selected for a limited 2- to 4-year term by a committee composed of SSC, ECSC, and national committee members, as a mechanism to pursue elements of SOLAS 3.0 that address fundamental and emerging scientific initiatives. The Implementation Strategy for SOLAS 3.0 will be updated regularly on the SOLAS website with specific activities sorted as to their contribution to each section of the science plan. The IPO, SSC, ECSC, National/Regional Representatives, and leaders of Task Groups, Endorsed Projects/Stations and Affiliated Projects will gather at annual SOLAS meetings and communicate through regular online meetings, emails, social media, and scientific events. Over the coming decade, SOLAS will use these essential connections, build future collaborative partnerships, and leverage advancing technologies (e.g., artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), autonomous in situ sampling, remote sensing) to discover new insights relating to ocean-atmosphere exchange and thus highlight the valuable links needed to address Earth’s changing global climate and facilitate sustainable societies into the future.