Anthropogenic forcings and climate change in the northern Pacific region

5th China-Japan-Korea IMBER Symposium and Training; Shanghai, China, 22-25 November 2011. This past November, scientists from China, Japan, and Korea gathered in Shanghai to share and discuss their latest achievements from the international Integrated Marine Biogeochemistry and Ecosystem Research (IMBER) project. The symposium focused on the impact of climate change and anthropogenic forcings on physical processes and biogeochemical cycles, ecosystem structure and functions, and fisheries in the northwestern Pacific region and how these complex interactions, in turn, influence marine ecosystems and human society. Scientists from China, Japan, and Korea have been working actively in the areas of Global Ocean Ecosystem Dynamics (GLOBEC) and IMBER science since the early 1990s. Since 2002 the biennial China- Japan-Korea GLOBEC-IMBER symposia have provided scientists from these countries with the opportunity to collaborate and exchange and compare their research in the northwestern Pacific and marginal seas. Following the GLOBEC-IMBER merger in 2010, the IMBER community decided to continue organizing these symposia.