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Outcomes and Impacts

SOCCO aims to have societal level impact that aligns with national and global needs:

  • Support the improvement in century scale climate risk forecasts by reducing uncertainties in our ability to accurately represent the biophysical mechanisms that govern ocean-atmosphere fluxes of CO2 and heat.

  • Support South African and global carbon mitigation policy by improving the confidence in century scale projections of climate risk by Earth System Models for informed adaptation planning and decision-making that meet society’s urgent need for robust and actionable climate risk management

  • Building a nationally integrated observational and modelling capability to support policy development and robust assessment of the opportunities and risks of ocean Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) strategies.

  • Address Human Capital Development and transformation needs within both scientific and technological research innovation by developing a skilled and capable workforce in support of a knowledge based economy.

Human Capital Development

SOCCO has made a significant impact on the national priority of human capital development (HCD) through its ambitious programme that prioritises extensive student training in multidisciplinary skills and strengthens our national capability to produce PhD graduates and to increase PhD qualified teaching and research staff. The technological and science platforms that these students work with leads to transformation needs within both scientific and technological research innovation. For example, the SOCCO programme builds capabilities through earth system science, big data analytics, robotics observations, machine learning, computer science and technical engineering, which are all essential for the future digital world and a knowledge society.

SOCCO’s ongoing commitment to HCD and transformation with an emphasis on gender and racial imbalance is evident through its student programme which hosts 15-24 MSc and PhD students annually with >80% meeting the transformation criteria of Historical Disadvantaged Individuals (HDI) and ~50% female. SOCCO is now estimated to have the strongest combination of quality and transformation in South African oceanography and climate science.