Joint Committee on the Properties of Seawater (JCS)

The Joint Committee on the Properties of Seawater is a permanent IAPWS/SCOR/IAPSO joint committee which is responsible for maintaining and improving the recent seawater standard (TEOS-10), and for developing the cooperation with the BIPM and the WMO. In particular, the development of new definitions and measurement procedures for seawater salinity, seawater pH and relative humidity of air, traceable to the SI and thus ensuring measurement comparability over climatological time scales of decades or centuries, are being pursued by this joint committee.

JCS news and documents

17^th November 2011

Letter from SCOR and IAPSO to IAPWS.

18^th February 2012

Letter from IAPWS to SCOR and IAPSO.

28^th August 2012

Proposal for a “Joint SCOR/IAPSO/IAPWS Committee on the Properties of Seawater”.

18^th September 2012

Letter from SCOR to IAPWS.

24^th June 2013

Report to SCOR and IAPSO on JCS Activities Aug 2012-June 2013.

5^th September 2013

Report on activities at JCS workshops, Greenwich UK Sept 2-3, 2013.

15^th February 2014

2013 Annual Report to IUGG on JCS Activities.

14^th July 2014

Report to SCOR and IAPSO on JCS Activities July 2013-June 2014.

11^th February 2015

Hellmuth, O., R. Feistel, J. Lovell-Smith and J. Kalova, 2015: Metrological Aspects of Humidity: State of Discussion on Common Positions, Challenges, and Needs. Technical Report of the Joint BIPM, CCT-WG6/CCQM and JCS Workshop on Hygrometry, held during the 16th International Conference on the Properties of Water and Steam 2013 (ICPWS 2013), Greenwich, UK.

Minutes of the BIPM1, CCT2-WG6/CCQM3 & JCS4 Joint Workshop on Metrological Aspects of Humidity Protocol, held during the 16th International Conference on the Properties of Water and Steam 2013 (ICPWS 2013), Greenwich, UK.

1^st July 2015

Procedures of the Joint SCOR/IAPWS/IAPSO Committee for the Properties of Seawater (JCS) for updating TEOS-10.

1^st August 2015

Report to SCOR and IAPSO on JCS Activities July 2014-June 2015.

23^rd December 2015

The following four papers in Metrologia summarise the metrological issues remaining in the definition and measurement of three variables of relevance to the climate community. These papers address (1) the measurement of ocean salinity in an SI-traceable manner, (2) the definition of pH and (3) the definition of the relative humidity of humid air. The first paper below summarises all three issues, and the following three papers address each issue in turn. In the case of salinity, the proposed solution is to measure and report the density (specific volume) of IAPSO standard seawater, while for pH and relative humidity there is a need to decide between several different definitions that are in use by different sections of the scientific community. It is hoped that these four publications, being substative outputs of the JCS, will lead to the adoption of a single standard for each of these quantities across all fields of science.

R. Feistel, R. Wielgosz, S.A. Bell, M.F. Camões, J.R. Cooper, P. Dexter, A.G. Dickson, P. Fisicaro, A.H. Harvey, M. Heinonen, O. Hellmuth, H.-J. Kretzschmar, J.W. Lovell-Smith, T.J. McDougall, R. Pawlowicz, P. Ridout, S. Seitz, P. Spitzer, D. Stoica and H. Wolf, 2015: Metrological challenges for measurements of key climatological observables: oceanic salinity and pH, and atmospheric humidity. Part 1: overview. Metrologia, 53, R1-R11

R. Feistel, R. Wielgosz, S.A. Bell, M.F. Camões, J.R. Cooper, P. Dexter, A.G. Dickson, P. Fisicaro, A.H. Harvey, M. Heinonen, O. Hellmuth, H.-J. Kretzschmar, J.W. Lovell-Smith, T.J. McDougall, R. Pawlowicz, P. Ridout, S. Seitz, P. Spitzer, D. Stoica and H. Wolf, 2015: Digital Supplement of the 2015 Metrologia article: Metrological challenges for measurements of key climatological observables: oceanic salinity and pH, and atmospheric humidity. Part 1: overview. Metrologia, 53, 1-22

R. Pawlowicz, R. Feistel, T.J. McDougall, P. Ridout, S. Seitz and H. Wolf, 2015: Metrological challenges for measurements of key climatological observables Part 2: oceanic salinity. Metrologia, 53, R12-R25

A.G. Dickson, M.F. Camões, P. Spitzer, P. Fisicaro, D. Stoica, R. Pawlowicz and R. Feistel, 2015: Metrological challenges for measurements of key climatological observables. Part 3: seawater pH. Metrologia, 53, R26-R39

J.W. Lovell-Smith, R. Feistel, A.H. Harvey, O. Hellmuth, S.A. Bell, M. Heinonen and J.R. Cooper, 2015: Metrological challenges for measurements of key climatological observables. Part 4: atmospheric relative humidity. Metrologia, 53, R40-R59

5^th February 2016

R. Feistel, 2015: Salinity and relative humidity: climatological relevance and metrological needs. ACTA IMEKO, ISSN: 2221-870X, 4, 57-61

26^th September 2018

Report to SCOR and IAPSO on JCS Activities July 2015-June 2016.

Report to SCOR and IAPSO on JCS Activities July 2016-June 2017.

Report to SCOR and IAPSO on JCS Activities July 2017-June 2018.