The Chinese research programs of oceanographic sciences which is relevant to global change are briefly introduced. The focal points of this introduction are put on the efforts of the field investigations and the research progress of China in Tropical Ocean and Global Atmosphere Programme (TOGA), World Ocean Circulation Experiment(WOCE), Joint Global Ocean Flux Study (JGOFS) and Past Global Changes(PAGES). The field investigations include the FGGE cruises, the PRC-US TOGA cruises in the western tropical Pacific Ocean,the cruises for
“air-sea interaction and interannual climate variability study in the western tropical Pacific Ocean”, the TOGA-COARE IOP cruise, the China WOCE cruse in the western equatorial Pacific Ocean, the cruises for Southern Ocean expedition,the cruises for circulation on the continental shelf of the east China Sea, the PRC-Japan Kuroshio cruises, and the JGOFS cruises in the marginal area on the continental shelf of the east China Sea, etc. The research achievements include the scientific result of the physical process studies for El Nino and La Nino, air-sea exchange of heat, momentum and CO2 etc, oceanic circulation and front studies in the Southern oceans, volume transport on the continental shelf of the east China Sea, material flux between the continental shelf marginal sea and open ocean, Kuroshio path and volume transport variability, and non-linear theory for Lagrange residual current in the shallow sea, etc.