Savannah, Ga.  In the major ocean basins, energetic western boundary currents (WBC) adjacent to subtropical continental shelves (STCS) interact strongly with bathymetry, resulting in first order consequences to shelf biochemistry and ecosystem response. Comparative analysis of the physical forcing and biochemical/ecological ramifications between the different ocean/shelf settings has the potential to reveal common and contrasting underlying properties and their sensitivity to climatic perturbations in ways that fragmented attention to individual system idiosyncrasies cannot. We believe the time is right to…