We would like to let you know that the 6^th Argo Science Workshop (ASW-6) on "The Argo program in 2020 and beyond: Challenges and opportunities" will be held at Hitotsubashi Hall in Tokyo, Japan, on 22-24 October 2018. The workshop will be a mix of invited and submitted plenary talks and posters, including a dedicated session on Biogeochemical Argo. Contribution towards any of the workshop objectives (see below) and presentations of underpinning science and technology are encouraged.

Abstract submission will close on 10 August 2018. Because of the capacity of the venue, the number of registrations will be limited to 200. Authors are advised not to delay registration.

On behalf of more than 100 contributing scientists worldwide, we proudly announce the release of Version 6 of the Surface Ocean CO₂ Atlas (SOCAT). SOCAT (www.socat.info) is a synthesis activity by international marine carbon scientists with annual public releases. SOCAT version 6 has 23.4 million quality-controlled in situ surface ocean fCO₂ (fugacity of carbon dioxide) measurements from 1957 to 2017 for the global oceans and coastal seas, as well as additional calibrated sensor fCO₂ measurements. The poster handout has further details on version 6 key features, findings and other information.

Over the past decade marine sciences experience a surge in the volume of data from in-situ collection, satellite missions and earth system model simulations. Scientists are increasingly faced with the emerging challenge of analysing and synthesising collected data, which are often too big and complex to detect temporal (diurnal to decadal) and spatial (local to global) variability or secular trends using traditional statistical approaches. Greater than ever proportion of the community has turned to advanced statistical and machine learning methods to integrate, analyse and synthetize these multi-platform data. The utility of these methods has been demonstrated in many areas of Earth Science, and is now also becoming apparent in ocean physics, air-sea interactions, ocean biogeochemical cycles, and marine ecology. This has resulted in the proliferation of data products that straddle oceanography and data science.

We invite scientists in this exciting intersection to submit abstracts for the session titled: "Novel data-analysis techniques for big data applications in marine science" (OS034). The session is open for submissions in the field of ocean physics, chemistry and/or biology but also those connecting the spheres, such as air-sea and air-land interactions.