Based on the long-term collaborations of more than 12 years between JAMSTEC/Japan and BPPT/Indonesia, the proposal on the development of Indonesia Maritime Continent (IMC) climate research laboratory on enhancement of atmospheric and oceanic study for societal benefits in Indonesia was just accepted by JICA-JST matching funds of the Japanese Government. In this project, BPPT and JAMSTEC plan to develop collaboratively a) science research center (Research Center) to study the climatic variability and change phenomena in the IMC both land and sea, b) observational technology center (Technology Center) to develop Indonesian land-atmosphere-ocean observing system for monitoring climate variability, and c) observation information center (Information Center) for the societal benefits and scientific research in Indonesia by using data from the TAO/TRITON buoy array, HARIMAU atmospheric radar-profiler network, RAMA buoy array, current NEONET information, and other available data in public.

The laboratory will be initially managed and operated by scientists from the two countries; however, we welcome participations and contribution from other institutes in other countries. As one of activities currently planned, the transfer of surface buoy technology by JAMSTEC to BPPT is listed. The final goal of the technology transfer is set as the replacement of TRITON buoy operation in the Indonesian EEZ in the western Pacific (Eq.-138E and 2N-130E) by Indonesian original surface buoys. This means that the present TAO/TRITON buoy array will not be maintained only by the US and Japan if this project will success.

Our presentation includes the historical story of JAMSTEC-BPPT collaborations, current status of ocean and atmospheric observations in and around IMC, draft plans of the laboratory in near future. We welcome any comments on the roles of the planned new laboratory to global ocean observations, especially to the Global Tropical Moored Array (http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/tao/global/global.html), the TAO/TRITON array, and the RAMA array.

The Great Barrier Reef Ocean Observing System (GBROOS) is an observation system that seeks to understand the impact of the Coral Sea, in particular cool and warm water intrusions, on the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) of north eastern Australia. GBROOS is a regional node of the Australian Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS, 2009). One component of GBROOS is the deployment of wireless sensor networks at seven reefs along the GBR.

Sensor networks have the potential to provide large amounts of cost effective real-time data from a range of sensors but most applications have focused on small scale terrestrial deployments. GBROOS looks to apply these new technologies to remote marine systems to better understand the thermal events that lead to coral bleaching and how the exchange of water from outside the reef impacts local conditions within the reef.

Seven reefs along the GBR will be instrumented; current deployments include Heron and One Tree Islands in the southern GBR and Davies Reef in the central GBR. The other reefs will be completed by 2010. At each site a base station is installed using existing towers or platforms. A high speed IP based data link is installed back to the mainland using 3G phone networks, line of sight microwave or surface ducted microwave (Palazzi et al, 2005). Around the reef lagoon six metre steel relay-poles are placed to create the wireless network with one of the poles also housing a weather station (Vaisala WXT520). Into the wireless network are deployed moored buoys onto which the main sensors are attached using a mix of inductive modem technology and simple cables.

An example deployment from One Tree Island is shown in Figure One. The main lagoon has a number of circular coral micro-atolls, a relay pole is installed in the centre of the micro-atoll and a sensor string run from the pole across to the edge of the atoll, up and over the rim and down into the main lagoon. This gives a vertical profile down the atoll wall as well as measurements within the atoll and the main lagoon.

The design uses a cheaper thermistor string coupled with more expensive oceanographic grade instruments with a SeaBird SBE39 located within the atoll and an SBE37 deeper in the lagoon (Fig. One). The SeaBird instruments act as a reference for the cheaper thermistors. The instruments are monitored by an intelligent controller that controls the sampling rates, coordinates the collection of data and monitors the battery life. Data are collected every ten minutes and sent, via the base station, back to the main data centre.

Automated quality control is done to identify bad data using the IODE (UNESCO/IOC/IODE, 1993) quality control flags. This produces a ‘Level-1’ product that is available in near-real time. Every month the data is manually reviewed and corrected to produce a Level-2 product, higher level summary products are also produced.

The data shows the dynamics of these lagoonal reefs including the impact of oceanic processes. A good example is tropical cyclone Hamish which went past One Tree Island on the 9th of March 2009. The real-time data (Fig. Two) shows a pressure drop as the cyclone moves by with a corresponding increase in wind. There was a marked mixing of the lagoonal waters; the profile shown in the bottom of Figure Two shows a stratified pattern before the cyclone and a well mixed one after.

Sensor networks offer a new set of capabilities for observing systems including real-time data, the ability to monitor and manage sensors and instruments remotely and the ability to do adaptive sampling to better capture events of interest. Most sensor networks have been in terrestrial environments using ‘cheap and cheerful’ sensors; the GBROOS project is one of the first to mix smart controllers with real-time communications and oceanographic grade instruments. This design returns data that has the required scientific robustness along with the many benefits of the new smart sensors such as rules based and adaptive sampling, central control and monitoring and support for a wide range of sensors.

Quality control of real-time data is problematic as the need to make data available quickly means that only limited automated checks can be applied. The project has adopted the idea of ‘levels’ of data where the lowest levels are raw data with more processing and correction being applied for higher level data (Bainbridge and Rehbein, 2008). The other issue is the lack of standards for the access and discovery of sensor data. The project is adopting the Open GIS Consortium (OGC) set of Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) standards (OGC, 2009), although some of these standards are not fully developed and there is currently little supporting software.

The GBROOS project shows a practical demonstration of the value of sensor networks, when combined with oceanographic grade instruments, to provide real time adaptive sampling of a range of ocean phenomena and the processes that drive them.

The Great Barrier Reef Ocean Observing System (GBROOS) is an observation system that seeks to understand the impact of the Coral Sea on the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) of north eastern Australia. GBROOS is a node of the Australian Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS) project.

Coral reefs are under threat. A recent survey (Wilkinson 2008) shows that 20% of reefs globally are already lost; 15% are under immediate threat and 20% are under longer term threat. Corals are sensitive to climate change and the sustainability of coral reefs globally may be under threat (IPCC AR4 2007). GBROOS looks to provide the real-time data required to understand climate change and the sustainability of the GBR.

The experimental design looks to provide complementary data at a range of scales and to link processes occurring at the tens of kilometres down to the environment around an individual coral head. The location of equipment deployed under GBROOS is shown in Figure One.

At the largest scale is remote sensing data from an X and L band receiving station located near Townsville in north-east Australia. The data includes NOAA AVHRR data used for Sea Surface Temperature and MODIS data used for ocean colour and productivity. Validation data are collected from a ferry mounted radiometer, an optical reference station for ocean colour validation and underway systems on selected research vessels.

At the next scale is an ocean HF radar installation in the southern part of the GBR that provides real-time information on surface waves and currents. The installation covers around 150 kilometres square at a resolution of four kilometre cells with data collected every ten minutes. The data is retrieved in real-time and processed into vector plots showing surface currents and waves.

Reference moorings have been deployed around Australia as part of the IMOS project. GBROOS maintains moorings off Townsville in the central GBR and off Darwin in northern Australia. The moorings have a surface weather station, bottom acoustic Doppler current profiler (currents and waves) and a series of SeaBird SBE39’s and WetLabs WQM instruments to give a profile of temperature, salinity, turbidity, chlorophyll and dissolved oxygen. Each month water samples are manually collected and analysed for zooplankton, pigments, alkalinity and water chemistry.

The heart of GBROOS is an array of moorings along the Great Barrier Reef designed to monitor the flow of oceanic water along and into the reef matrix. The moorings are set up as pairs with one offshore deeper slope mooring and one inshore shelf mooring. Pairs of moorings are located in the northern, central and southern parts of the GBR (Fig. One). In the very southern area the design is more complex in order to capture the eddy systems that occur in this region. The design of the moorings is similar to the reference moorings.

The finest scale data comes from wireless sensor networks located on seven reefs (Fig. One). Sensor networks allow for intensive sampling of environments in shallow locations giving real-time information about water flows around individual corals as well as flows within the reef. Using smart controllers and two-way IP communication the systems can be controlled and monitored in real time. This allows for adaptive sampling where the sampling can be changed in response to events. The deployments mix oceanographic grade instruments with smart controllers to give intelligent systems returning quality environmental measurements.

The deployments are targeted at understanding particular geographic issues. In the south the issue is monitoring the variability in the current flows and understanding the impact of these on the local climate and downstream as they form into the East Australian Current. This is an area of complex re-circulation, the variability of which has an impact on downstream oceanography and climate.

In the central GBR the issue is the inflow of oceanic water into the reef matrix and the impact this has on thermal events such as summer warming and risks of coral bleaching. Intrusions have been detected across the slope, understanding what forces these events will lead to a better understanding of how oceanic changes are reflected into on-shore communities. In the north the systems are designed to collect comparative information on climate links to spawning events (such as coral mass spawning).

GBROOS is an observing system that looks to measure the connectivity between the oceanic systems that drive shelf and coastal water flows and the biological systems that use the services provided by these flows. The impact of long term changes in the oceans on coastal systems needs to be understood if the long term sustainability of coral reefs is to be assured. Systems such as GBROOS are a fundamental part of understanding these systems and in developing appropriate responses.

The aim of the study is to suggest optimal orbit candidates for a new Post-EPS (EUMETSAT Polar System) altimeter mission planned around 2020 and onward. After more than 15 years of continuous and accurate space altimetry, it is worth questioning old strategies, and trying to define the best choices for future missions, based on the experience of previous missions and on the requirements from data users.

Optimising future altimeter missions is indeed a complex problem. Many conflicting requirements, constraints and issues must be taken into account: the diversity of user requirements (ocean applications and climate, ice and land applications of altimetry), the need to optimise the altimeter system error budget (mission payload), adequacy between the signals of interest and the altimeter system capacity (aliasing of high frequency signals like tides, atmospheric forcing, continuity between successive missions for climate change estimation), the incentive to minimize mission costs (technology, orbit, missions' lifespan...), the need to consider the multi-mission, multi-agency context.

The orbit geometry determines the geographical coverage, the space/time sampling by the altimeter measurements and the type of applications that can be addressed. While defining a new altimeter mission, it is thus of highest importance to optimise the orbit parameter. Particularly the aliasing of tides is a crucial issue: it was one of the drivers of the choice of the Topex/Poseidon-Jason’s orbit. Nowadays tidal signals are well known in deep ocean. However some issues remain in coastal areas and internal tides are not determined accurately. Aliasing of tides by altimeter sampling remains important as it may pollute other signal estimations, particularly in the aliasing band of 40-90 days and the semi-annual/annual band.

Some orbit candidates for Post-EPS altimeter mission have been selected and investigated within this context, when accepting or relaxing the tidal aliasing criteria which can be very restrictive. Only non sun-synchronous orbits are considered, because there is no possible aliasing of daily signals in such orbits.

Each post-EPS candidate is assessed in term of sampling capability (temporal and spatial), and the direct sampling effect of the orbit is investigated for the most important applications of altimetry (mesoscale variability of the ocean, high frequency phenomena...) thanks to OSSE experiments in a mapping context. As Sentinel-3 is the mission which will most likely fly around the same period, only 2-satellites constellations with Sentinel-3 are considered in the study and they are then compared to the well-known altimetric constellations (Jason-1/Envisat, Jason-1/TP).

The main area of interest of for the West Australian Integrated Marine Observation System (WAIMOS) is the continental shelf and slope regions offshore Fremantle extending northwards to Guilderton. Within this region there important topographic features such as the Rottnest Island and Perth Canyon and the circulation is dominated by the southward flowing Leeuwin Current (LC) with the northward flowing Leeuwin Undercurrent (LU) beneath the (LC) and the wind driven Capes Current (CC) located on the shelf, particularly during the summer months. The IMOS infrastructure located in this region includes HF Radar (CODAR and WERA systems) for surface current measurements at 2 different scales (Figure 1); Ocean gliders (Slocum and Seagliders) for subsurface water properties (Figure 2); continental shelf moorings (ADCP, thermistor and water quality loggers) (Figure 2); passive acoustic sensors for whale monitoring (Figure 2); and, remotely sensed data products (SST and ocean colour). Example data collected from these instruments will be presented in relation to the understanding of different processes operating in the region. These include: (1) Interaction between the LC and CC. Here, the warmer, lower salinity southward flowing Leeuwin Current interacts with the cooler, higher saline northward flowing Capes Current creating region of high horizontal shear and thus intense mixing; (2) Winter cascade of dense water along the continental shelf. The region experiences a Mediterranean climate with hot summers and cold winters. During the summer months the inner continental shelf waters increases in salinity due to evaporation. In winter as this higher salinity waters cool its density is higher than offshore waters and a gravitational circulation is set-up where the inner shelf water are transported as higher salinity plumes into deeper waters.

Developing countries have a significant proportion of the coastal zone making them key to managing this area along with their own growth. The coastal zone is changing and increasingly threatened in new ways, driven by the oceans’ natural rhythms and a growing human population and developed society. Managers struggle to understand how fast and by how much the climate will become warmer, what to do about the problem and how the ocean will be impacted. The accelerating rates of climate change raise concerns about the stability of ocean ecosystems: will tipping points be reached beyond which they cannot recover? While eventually these concerns will be integrated into a unified earth management system, there are presently no concrete development plans for an integrated coastal zone management module to adapt and mitigate climate change Here we propose a systems approach to develop a management module for developing countries and to use western South America as a “pilot project”. Why western South America? The region is the most variable in the world ocean. It harbors the largest single species fishery in the world producing an order of magnitude more fish than any other region per unit area. The economies of the region are heavily dependent on the ocean. It is a region of great scientific importance with very low in oxygen and pH. There is an entity, The Permanent Commission for the South Pacific (CPPS in Spanish), that coordinates ocean policies and activities for Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Chile. The system would leverage ongoing efforts and serve as the overall coordination and management module. At the heart of the system are an information collection, management and modeling system that can rapidly inform policy makers, elected officials and the business community about imminent threats (Figures 1 and 2). Today’s scientific/management strategy iterates between observations, basic ecosystem rules and single-purpose models or management practices. This process often takes years and has a short time horizon. Decisions are reached for yesterday’s problem rather than todays and tomorrows. In the proposed new system (Figure 2) there is tight integration between components and broad participation by all sectors. The system is composed of the following elements: 1) Observations; 2) Data and Information Management; 3) Modeling; 4) Products; 5) Decision Making; and 6) The Integrated System with Feedbacks. Broader-purpose models, using novel techniques and increased available data, are used to make predictions that lead to: 1) no action; 2) a change in behavior (reducing emissions, fishing, pollution, educating the public, etc.) and 3) an active response to mitigate. New observations lead to modifications of the plan of action and improvement in the model. The system allows decisions to be evaluated against each other. The proposed system integrates and therefore increases efficiency. The proposed development starts from the top of Figure 2 with observations and moves down vertically. The development team includes leading academic scientists and engineers with experience in ocean observations and forecasts, government entities responsible for ocean resource and environmental management, private companies, and local and international NGOs. The system allows interested parties to become involved as needed. The observation system consists of sub-components. The first is a sparse but continuous in water component complemented with observations made from space. This sub-component is the backbone and includes gliders, floats, moorings and ship surveys (Figure 1). The second component is a rapid and controlled response unit. The target of this unit are crisis (anoxia, oil spills) and studies for understanding the temporal and spatial variability of important processes for which the models need parameters. It includes gliders and AUVs. New long-range AUVs presently under development are ideally suited for this application. The third component is a country/local system geared to specific issues of a sub-region. The needs of tropical Ecuador and Colombia are different from upwelling-dominated Peru and Chile. Required as part of the integrated backbone are basin-scale to regional atmospheric and oceanic models that can be used for product generation, hindcasting and forecasting. These models would assimilate information from the backbone and the rapid response units. The data and information management system would link the observations and models and provide easy access for those parts dealing with product generation and decision support. These elements would then feedback to the top (Figure 2). The intent of this presentation is to provide the overall vision and to receive input from the participants in OceanObs09.

Since the launch of Topex-Poseidon in 1992, satellite altimetry has become the major component of the Earth's observing system. Thanks to its global view of the ocean state, numerous improvements in the environment understanding have been done and global monitoring of changes has now become possible.

More and more needs are nowadays expressed for similar coverage near the coastlines where human activities are concentrated. In these peculiar oceanic regions, satellite altimeter techniques are unfortunately limited by the emerged lands leading to a growth of the error budget of the altimeter products. To fulfil the need of coastal studies, the French Spatial Agency CNES set up in November 2007 its PISTACH initiative for improving Jason-2 altimeter products over coastal areas and also inland waters.

In the first months of the project, a study of the user needs and the definition of the products were conducted. A second phase dealt with analysis, selection and development of the new fields to be implemented in these new altimeter products (retracking of the waveforms, radiometer and model wet troposphere correction, local model for correction of tides and atmospheric forcing, sea state bias, data editing). The third and last phase has consisted in the prototype implementation, validation and operations during Jason-2 CalVal phases and after. These operations should end up in September 2009.

Since November 2008, the PISTACH prototype have been generating coastal dedicated Level 2 (I)GDR altimeter products freely provided to users trough an anonymous FTP website: ftp://ftpsedr.cls.fr/pub/oceano/pistach/. The evaluation of the actual improvements and data quality reached near the coasts with this new dataset is still under investigation by users.
This contribution will present the main results of the PISTACH project about user needs. It will also define all the new algorithms developed and implemented into the prototype and exhibit some early results of comparison with standard products.

The scientific usefulness of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) signals for Earth Observation is already well established for atmospheric sounding, where GPS signals can help recover tropospheric temperature, pressure and humidity and provide near real-time ionosphere total electron content data. More recently, GNSS signals proved their worth for Earth Surface Reflectometry as well, thanks to a pioneering experiment on-board the UK-Disaster Monitoring Constellation Satellite in 2003 by Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL). In that experiment, GPS signals reflected off the Earth surface were successfully recovered from a dedicated receiver on a low-Earth-orbiting satellite and subsequently analysed to yield geophysical information about the scattering properties of the ocean, ice and land surfaces (Gleason et al., 2005, 2006).

Over the ocean, GNSS-Reflectometry equates to bi-static altimetry, and, as in conventional ocean altimetry, the reflected GNSS signals contain information about the sea surface height (altimetry) and the ocean roughness (sea state and scatterometry). The retrieval of sea surface height and ocean roughness with GNSS-R has now been demonstrated to a satisfactory level of accuracy for scientific applications despite the suboptimal GNSS signal characteristics for altimetry, although GNSS-R for altimetry has yet to be demonstrated from space. The capabilities of GNSS-R for ocean wind and waves monitoring was demonstrated in 2005 when useful surface roughness information (in the form of the mean square slope variance) was retrieved from the UK-DMC data and validated again in situ buoy measurements. A recent re-analysis of the UK-DMC data proposed a new methodology whereby it is now also possible to retrieve directional information about sea state by exploiting Delay-Doppler Maps of the reflected GPS signals (Clarizia et al., 2009).

GNSS navigation signals are ubiquitous and could help dramatically improve the monitoring of ocean wind and waves. High-density global measurements of directional mean square slope variance are essential for scientific and operational uses which need proper characterisation of the ocean/atmosphere interface. Air-sea exchanges of gases, for example, are controlled by surface mean square slope, so that better sampling would have a direct impact on our understanding of the magnitude and distribution of atmospheric CO2 uptake by the ocean. Equally, mean square slope variance is relevant to operational weather and ocean forecasting, with important applications in the prediction of high winds, dangerous sea states, risk of flooding and storm surges. Finally, ocean roughness plays a supporting role for important climate-relevant Earth Observation techniques, for example IR SST where wind history is used to quantify the degree of vertical stratification in micro layer, or surface salinity retrieval with SMOS to remove the effect of ocean roughness on L-band brightness temperature.

The GPS-R receiver onboard UK-DMC was a small, low-power, low-cost instrument ideally suited for deployment on small satellites. The method therefore offers improved sampling of ocean wind and waves by means of a very modest instrument that could easily be fitted on more satellites. Work is now underway to optimise the instrument design and build the next generation of GNSS-R receivers to improve performance while maintaining its low-cost, low power and lightweight advantages.

References
Clarizia, M. P., Gommenginger , C., Gleason, S., Srokosz, M., Galdi, C., and Di Bisceglie, M., 2009: Analysis of GNSS-R Delay-Doppler maps from the UK-DMC satellite over the ocean, Geophysical Research Letters, doi:10.1029/2008GL036292.
Gleason S, Hodgart S, Sun Y, Gommenginger C, Mackin S, Adjrad M & Unwin M, 2005: Detection and Processing Bistatically Reflected GPS Signals from Low Earth Orbit for the Purposes of Ocean Remove Sensing, IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens., Vol 43, No. 6, pp.1229-1241.
Gleason S, 2006: Remote Sensing of Ocean, Ice and Land Surfaces Using Bistatically Scattered GNSS Signals from Low Earth Orbit, PhD Thesis, University of Surrey, December 2006.

The supply of energy to higher trophic levels in open marine ecosystems is dependant on primary production of phytoplankton. Primary production is limited by the time varying supply of light and nutrients. Until relatively recently nutrient measurements were only possible using low-frequency ship-based monitoring techniques with samples analysed on board using traditional chemical methods such as continuous flow analysis or stored prior to analysis in the laboratory. The Cefas SmartBuoy measures nutrients using two different approaches. High frequency measurements (typically 2 hourly) of TOxN (nitrate + nitrite) are made using an Envirotech NAS-3X in-situ nutrient analyser. This instrument uses the traditional chemical method within a robust submersible casing. Instruments are checked for linearity prior to deployment and calibration is achieved in-situ by use of an on board standard. The second method relies upon an automated waters sampler (AquaMonitor) where water samples (up to 150 ml) are collected and stored in blood transfusion bags pre-loaded with mercuric chloride. On return to the laboratory samples are analysed using standard techniques. The concentrations of nitrate, phosphate (if only negligible suspended particulate matter present) and silicate can be determined using this approach. The use of different methods allows comparison of datasets and also builds in redundancy in case of instrument failure. In-situ data are also compared to the results of discrete water samples which are collected by ship alongside the buoy by a rosette sampler lowered into the water during mooring service cruises. Measurements made since 2001 on the SmartBuoy network (www.cefas.co.uk/monitoring) reveal variability at a wide range of temporal and spatial scales. Results will be presented that show nearly an order of magnitude variability in TOxN over tidal cycles in nutrient enriched coastal sites. Strong interannual variability is also evident as well as episodic events associated with increased rainfall. The rapid draw down of nutrients during the spring bloom is a recurrent feature of the time-series as is the build up of nutrients during the winter period. Lesson learnt from nearly 10 years of continuous observations will be discussed and future plans for the monitoring network will be described.

The Canary Islands Oceanic Platform (PLOCAN) is a public infrastructure for research, development and innovation in the fields of ocean science and technology at increasing depths. Located East of Gran Canaria Island (Canary Islands, Spain), PLOCAN will provide rapid access to great depths at short distance from the shore, accelerating research and the generation of water column and deep-ocean knowledge. Specifically, PLOCAN will host a permanent deep-sea observatory, be a test-bed for innovative technologies, form specialists and provide training in the field and be a national base of manned and unmanned submersibles. PLOCAN’s vision is focused on generation and exchange of science and innovations between the academic and the socio-economic spheres. PLOCAN will be a fully instrumented gate to the deep ocean, an efficient and cost-effective solution to test products and processes, and cluster private and public partnerships to face undersea challenges. PLOCAN also anticipates the diversity of technological and scientific opportunities that will result from the multiplication of ocean observatory initiatives. Beyond the realm of ocean observing systems PLOCAN’s vision is to be an accelerator for marine and deep-sea research and development at large, to provide optimal working conditions in a controlled environment with the necessary environmental guarantees

The Integrated Marine Observing System aims to observe the oceans around Australia to meet the national and international research needs. Australia has one of the largest marine jurisdictions of any nation on earth. At over 14 million km2 Australia’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) is nearly twice the surface area of the Australian continent. It extends from the tropics to high latitudes in Antarctic waters and much of it is unexplored.

The surrounding Pacific and Indian Oceans strongly affect the continental climate-system at all time scales, from seasons to decades. Boundary currents such as East Australian Current and the Leeuwin Current affect regional climatic conditions and help sustain the marine ecosystems. There is evidence that these currents are changing on decadal time scales and have already impacted marine ecosystems, but the data is sparse and neither the currents nor ecosystems have been monitored in a systematic way.

The Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS) was established as part of the Australian Government’s National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) with $A50M and more than equal co-investments from Universities and government agencies. An additional $52 million of federal funds over 4 years were secured in 2009, as part of the Education Investment Fund (EIF) Super Science Initiative to enhance the existing observing system, and extend into Northern Australian and Southern Ocean waters. Such an investment is testament to the early success of IMOS and a proactive marine community that prepared by consensus a policy document entitled A Marine Nation: A National Framework for Marine Research and Innovation. The community consultation and planning for the enhancement and extension of IMOS is currently underway.

IMOS is a nationally managed and distributed set of equipment providing streams of in situ oceanographic data and satellite data products. It provides essential data streams to understand and model the role of the oceans in climate change, and data to initialize seasonal climate prediction models. If sustained in the long term, it will permit identification and management of climate change in the coastal marine environment. It will provide an observational nexus to better understand and predict the fundamental connections between coastal biological processes and regional/oceanic phenomena that influence biodiversity.

The IMOS strategic research-goal is to assemble and provide free, open and timely access to streams of data that support research on the role of the oceans in the climate system and the impact of major boundary currents on continental shelf environments, ecosystems and biodiversity.

Given the extent and challenge of addressing the broad range of marine issues in the Australian EEZ, IMOS is considered only the beginning of the observing system that Australia needs. The cost of an adequate observing system will be high due to the great length of coastline and the relatively small population and economy. Never-the-less, staged enhancements are being planned. The return from investing in ocean observations around Australia estimated in 2006 concluded that the cost:benefit to the Australian economy of investing in ocean observations was better than 1:20.

Governance of IMOS is controlled by an Advisory Board with an independent Chair. The Board members are appointed for outstanding abilities to guide the program and are senior leaders able to take a broad, national perspective on IMOS development. The IMOS Office established at the University of Tasmania coordinates and manages all of the investments as a national system. The IMOS Office also receives advice from a Scientific Steering Committee made up of the leaders of regional Nodes.

The scientific rationale for IMOS is set by five regional Nodes covering the Great Barrier Reef, New South Wales, Southern Australia, Western Australia and the Bluewater and Climate Node (fig 1). Each Node has 50 to 100 members. Nine national Facilities make the observations specified by the Nodes using different components of infrastructure and instruments. The observing facilities include three for bluewater and climate observations (Argo Australia, Enhanced Measurements from Ships of Opportunity and Southern Ocean Time Series), three facilities for coastal currents and water properties (Moorings, Ocean Gliders and HF Radar) and three for coastal ecosystems (Acoustic Tagging and Tracking, Autonomous Underwater Vehicle and a biophysical sensor network on the Great Barrier Reef). The operators of the facilities are the major players in marine research in Australia. A satellite remote sensing facility assembles data for the region and the electronic Marine Information Infrastructure (eMII) provides access to all IMOS data, enhanced data products, and web services in a searchable and interoperable framework.

Implementation of IMOS facilities began in 2007, and over 90% of the planned infrastructure has now been deployed. All data streams are now available in near real time through the IMOS website. Over the next two years, focus will shift from infrastructure deployment, to the development of user communities within the Nodes. Looking to the future, uptake of data from a broad user community is critical as focus turns to justify funding sustained ocean observations in Australia for a further 5 years.

1. The Euro-Argo research infrastructure
Maintaining the array’s size and global coverage in the coming decades is the next challenge for Argo. Euro-Argo will develop and progressively consolidate the European component of the global network. Specific European interests also require increased sampling in some regional seas. Overall, the Euro-Argo infrastructure should comprise 800 floats in operation at any given time. The maintenance of such an array would require Europe to deploy about 250 floats per year. Euro-Argo must be considered in its entirety: not only the instruments, but also the logistics necessary for their preparation and deployment, field operations, the associated data streams and data centres. Maintenance, evolution and sustainability of European contributions to Argo require high level of cooperation between European partners.

2. The Euro-Argo preparatory phase (January 2008-June 2010)
As a new European research infrastructure, Euro-Argo (www.euro-argo.eu) started a preparatory phase funded through the EU 7th Framework Research Programme. Euro-Argo preparatory phase includes all European Member States (France, United Kingdom, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Norway) involved in Argo and several potential new actors (Greece, Portugal, Poland and Bulgaria). The main objective of the Euro-Argo preparatory phase is to undertake the work needed to ensure that by 2010 Europe will be able to provide, deploy and operate an array of 800 floats and to provide a world-class service to the research (climate) and environment monitoring (e.g. GMES) communities. The specific objectives of the Euro-Argo preparatory phase are as follows:

The Australian National Mooring Network (ANMN) is a series of National Reference Stations (NRS) and various mooring arrays which monitor oceanographic phenomena in Australian coastal waters. The network is a facility of the Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS) and managed on a regional basis within 7 sub-facilities. These are: NRS – Coordination & Analysis, Queensland and Northern Australia, New South Wales, South Australia, Western Australia, Acoustic Observatories, and Satellite Ocean Colour – Calibration & Verification.

The NRS consist of nine sites, eight with moored sensors and all with water and plankton sampling, on the Australian continental shelf (Figure 1). Though nationally co-ordinated they are managed regionally by the relevant sub-facility. Multi-disciplinary data sets of physical, chemical and biological parameters are collected at each NRS. Building on three existing sites where a simple set of water quality data have been regularly collected since the 1940s the NRS forms the backbone of the ANMN, providing context to other studies and a time series of datasets to monitor climate change.

The Queensland and Northern Australia sub-facility consisting of four pairs of moorings located north to south along the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) and two NRS sites (Figure 2). Each pair has an outer mooring on the continental slope in water greater than 200m and an on-shelf mooring sitting on the continental shelf in shallower water around 30-70m deep. Like other ANMN moorings, the array deploys a range of instrumentation including Acoustic Doppler Current Profilers and WetLabs Water Quality Meters (WQM) that measure current velocities, dissolved oxygen, fluorescence, turbidity, conductivity, temperature, and depth. Three of the four shelf moorings will also have surface buoys to measure meteorological and radiation observations in real-time. The sub facilities objective is to observe the cross-shelf exchange of water between the Coral Sea and the GBR. Water moving along and onto the GBR will be measured by monitoring the southward flowing East Australian Current (EAC) and the northward Hiri western boundary current. Moorings in the southern GBR monitor the strength of currents related to upwelling events detectable on the Capricorn-Bunker Shelf, which supply deep, nutrient-rich water to the reef.

The New South Wales sub-facility is establishing a national reference transect of moorings and measurements off Sydney, which includes all parameters measured by other NRS. The facility also plans to deploy two moorings in the northern, and two moorings in southern NSW waters. The transect consists of three moorings and five water sampling stations in an area just downstream of typical EAC separation from the coast which is often influenced by EAC eddies. Data collection will support research on the marine ecosystems associated with these eddies. As this is the most densely populated area of Australia, issues such as water quality, waste disposal, shipping hazards, harmful algal blooms and recreation are of particular research interest. The moorings to the north and south will enhance the ANMN coverage along the coast of south-eastern Australia and also provide long term monitoring of the continental shelf region both upstream and downstream of the EAC separation point.

The South Australian sub-facility is deploying six moorings to monitor the large seasonal coastal upwelling of water that occurs along the continental shelf during summer. The mooring will include a slope mooring at the 600m isobath to measure the Flinders Current. An outer shelf mooring also examines outflows of saline rich water from coastal gulfs during Austral winter as well as enhanced upwelling from the du Couedic canyon. Three shelf moorings will be located in the path of both upwelling and downwelling exchange to allow measurement of the alongshore currents and exchange, and the alongshore evolution of the planktonic systems as it evolves towards the Gulfs and Eyre Peninsula. A NRS mooring is located at a convergence point of isobaths and will be able to monitor upwelling/outflow events as well as long-term variations in the strength of the coastal current.

The Western Australia sub facility will deploy an array of moorings around Perth will assit local researchers investigate the variability in the Leeuwin Current and continental shelf currents both in-terms of alongshore and cross-shore variability as well as processes within the Perth canyon. The array will consist of five moorings along the ‘Two Rocks’ transect from the 50m to the 500m isobath. One biophysical mooring with WQMs is to be deployed near the head of Perth canyon in 200m depth and two thermistor chains to a depth of 500m. The sub-facility will also support three NRS located at Ningaloo, Esperance and Rottnest.

The Acoustic Observatories sub-facility is deploying.passive acoustic listening station arrays in the Perth Canyon and Portland in South Australia. The stations will provide baseline data on ambient oceanic noise, detection of fish and mammal vocalizations linked to ocean productivity, whale migration patterns and detection of underwater events. Through an analysis of these signals, it is possible to both identify different species and assess the number of animals present within the range of acoustic observation. Big animals can also be located by a horizontal array of sea noise loggers constituting a passive acoustic observatory.

The Satellite Ocean Colour Calibration and Validation sub-facility is located on the Lucinda Jetty Coastal Observatory in Northern Queensland. The observatory aims to provide ground-truth data in tropical Queensland coastal waters to unravel the inaccuracies in remotely-sensed satellite ocean colour products due to the optical complexity of these waters and the overlying atmosphere. The observatory will become the preeminent source of measurements for the validation of coastal-ocean colour radiometric products applied to biogeochemistry and climate studies in Australia. It will merge two different data streams: the above water measurements of the water radiance and the in water measurement of the optical properties. Two reference sites will also be used to provide satellite operators and data users with access to reliable calibration and validation data for the coastal and ocean colour satellite mission data sets.

An optimal design of the ocean observing systems has been yearned to provide. In this paper, we demonstrate the effectiveness of an adjoint sensitivity analysis on the development of an optimal observing system for basin-scale processes. The estimate of the adjoint solution enables us to detect the sensitivity to fluctuations of model variables, which can facilitate the identification and characterization of the origins and pathways of specific water masses. The obtained information should contribute to the development of the strategic plan for the spatial and temporal deployment of measurement instruments (e.g., moored buoy), hydrographic survey, and others. Here, we performed observing system simulation experiment (OSSE) to evaluate the impact of the observing system data, assumed by an adjoint sensitivity analysis, on ocean state estimate. We focus on typical subarctic North Pacific water which is indicative of the mesothermal water, and then applied an adjoint sensitivity analysis to the mesothermal water to detect the origins. The results show that the origin of this water lies mostly in the Kuroshio Extension region and a minor proportion comes from the Gulf of Alaska. Based on this analytical result, two different data assimilation runs were executed with/without the simulated observations in the source regions. The error value for the water temperature representative for the mesothermal water in the case with the simulated observations is reduced to approximately 1/2 of the value in the case without them. This fact shows that observation data input in the detected source regions can effectively achieve better reproduction of the mesothermal water in the reanalysis field. These results imply that our strategy for the development of an optimal observing system using an adjoint sensitivity analysis is promising.

The Microbial Observatory of Rio de Janeiro (MORio) was stablished 13 years ago and since then has been a structure for regular sample collection. It is represented by an estuarine monitoring site, and the sampling began in 1997 with water quality measurements. Bacterioplankton analyses by flow cytometry were included in 1998, and more recently microbial diversity has been also studied. Even in the beginning of the study period, the values were already higher than shown in previous reports. This was attributed to the restriction of the water circulation in the bay, and the consequent reduction of water renewal and dilution of effluents. In the last years, it has been observed an increase in sewage discharges in Guanabara Bay. Based on this scenario and the data presented here, it could be predicted a continuous decreasing trend in water quality for the next years. We are now moving towards the automation on data acquisition, analyses, quality control, data handling and storage, following data distribution and availability.Well stablished technologies will be used, as e.g. the “ferry-box” concept. Microbial and general ecosystems observation projects depends more and more on good field instrumentation and smart data acquisition techniques, for precise and reliable studies. Field sensors are becoming much more complex and "inteligent", requiring software skills not always easy to be learned by the aplication-focused professionals. Also, the cost related to these activities are high, when compared to the main research areas. The eLua (Embedded Lua) project aims to take care and hide the low-level software complexities and offer the simplicity and power of the Lua language, so that no specialized embedded software programmer is needed in the team. eLua also offers a degree of portability never seen on the embedded development world before. It allows the hardware platforms to be treated as "comodities", evolving to faster and newer hardware without the need to rewrite the aplication programs. Our approach is a proof of concept and a test field for the development of new environmental monitoring technologies applied to the Global Ocean Observing Systems.

During the last 15 years, multi-satellite altimetry data was largely shown to be able to observe a significant fraction of sea surface height variability. Past altimeter constellations ranged from one to four satellites. It allowed to better assess the performances of the global altimetry observing system (multi-mission merged maps), and it underlined the limits of spatial and temporal sampling for observing smaller scales and high frequency signals.

In order to better observe sea surface variability, new technologies and new altimeter constellations are considered, and their sampling capability is assessed and compared to historical scenarios. The focus is on high resolution altimetry: large swath altimetry (SWOT) or large altimeter constellations (20+ altimeters). In this study, an OSSE baseline was used to underline the observing capability of old and new altimetric systems to better sample mesoscale and sub-mesoscale signal in a mapping (objective analysis) context.

Aims

We present results from a major new ship of opportunity (SOOP) program observing the ocean waters around Australia. The SOOP Facility encompasses both the open ocean and coastal waters, in support of short time-scales associated with ocean prediction and the longer term scales of climate research. The aim of the SOOP Facility is to implement an integrated observing system in Australian regional seas that link physical, chemical and biological oceanography. Our ships of opportunity include both commercial vessels on regular routes and research vessels covering more varied routes. The SOOP Facility forms part of the Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS) which is a new science infrastructure initiative funded by the Australian Government.

The target regions are the boundary current systems off Eastern and Western Australia, the Southern Ocean, the shelf seas across northern Australia, and the Great Barrier Reef. This is achieved by the following specific goals:

1. Implement vessels on suitable routes with an integrated system of measurements including physical and biogeochemical parameters
a. Monitor the major boundary currents systems around Australia.
b. Monitor both local processes and the interactions of the boundary currents on the continental shelf

2. Provide in situ input and/or validation to model and data analyses covering the waters around Australia (SST, Air-Sea flux, BLUElink, POAMA etc).

Monitoring Platforms

High-density XBT Sections - Five major (HRX) high-resolution XBT lines provide boundary to boundary profiling, closely spaced sampling to resolve mesoscale eddies, fronts and boundary currents. The lines are repeated 4 times per year with an on-board technician. The routes sample each major boundary current system using available commercial vessel traffic. All of the transects transmit data in real-time.

Biogeochemical Program - uses the RV Southern Surveyor and the l' Astrolabe which sample the critical regions of the Southern Ocean and Australian waters, which have a major impact on CO2 uptake by the ocean and are regions where biogeochemical cycling is predicted to be sensitive to changing climate. Southern Surveyor has a wide spatial coverage and each year covers tropical to sub-polar waters.

The Astrolabe line, is one of the most significant repeat sampling lines for the ocean and samples all major Southern Ocean water masses. Observations of carbon, nutrients, pigments, phytoplankton species and bio-optical properties of organic matter cover the spring through late summer period when the region is most active biologically.

AusCPR - To monitor plankton we use the Continuous Plankton Recorder (CPR), the only platform that can assess plankton species and be towed behind ships of opportunity. Species-level data are vital to examine mesoscale productivity, biodiversity, and climate impacts on marine ecosystems. Two seasonal routes are operated, in the Southern Ocean, and the East Australian Current Sensors on Tropical Research Vessels – Fixed sensor sets maintained on the 2 tropical research vessels (RV Cape Ferguson and RV Solander). The instruments obtain underway observations of temperature, salinity, chlorophyll, fluorescence, light absorption, and irradiance. Data are collected in both the Great Barrier Reef waters, the western Coral Sea, and Arafura Sea within repeated transects and individual voyage tracks. The actual location of data collected depends on the operational schedules of both vessels.

SST Sensors - Implemented on Australian Volunteer Observing Fleet (AVOF) vessels and several passenger ferries. Hull-mounted sensors supply high-quality bulk SST data fed into existing data management systems and broadcast via satellite back to Australia every one to three hours. Radiometers on ferries supply high-quality skin SST data in near real-time.

Research Vessel Real-time Air-Sea Fluxes - Research vessels have been equipped with "climate quality" met. systems, providing high quality air-sea flux measurements and delivered in near real-time. A full set of air-sea fluxes essential for climate studies requires: wind, air and sea temp., humidity, pressure, precip., long- and short-wave radiation. Data are broadcast via satellite back to Australia daily.

All of the data are freely and as far as possible, immediately available to all Australian and international researchers. Research in climate science, physical oceanography, ocean forecasting, coastal ocean dynamics and ecosystem and fisheries benefit from these regular, high-quality, timely observations of the ocean state. Results from each of the components will be presented.

The ‘OceanScope’ concept envisions a new paradigm for the systematic and sustained observation of the ocean water column. It proposes to develop a partnership between the ocean observing community and merchant marine industry so that a number of synergies can be realized which to date have not been possible, notwithstanding a very high level of cooperation between individual ship operators and scientists. These include 1) an enhanced ability identify routes and operators in all oceans, 2) new instruments and technologies developed and optimized for automated operation on commercial vessels, and 3) real time data streams, automated data processing and distribution to the user community. One option for implementation of this concept would be through the establishment of an international agency, something like an ESA or a CERN, which have long-term mandates appropriate to the tasks they are charged with. To develop these ideas SCOR and IAPSO have teamed up to sponsor a Working Group called OceanScope (SCOR WG #133). Marine vessels impose special challenges but also provide enormous possibilities for global coverage of the oceans. To address these in a systematic indeed holistic way, the Working Group will bring together experts from the shipping industry, the ocean observing community and instrumentation companies. The product of the Working Group will be an Implementation Plan for OceanScope. The Working Group’s first meeting will take place this summer July 17-19 just prior to the IAPSO meeting in Montreal. The activities of this Working Group should be of interest to OceanObs09, and we propose therefore to present a progress report when OceanObs09 meets in September.

The Integrated Marine Observing System, (IMOS), is a centrally co-ordinated nationally distributed set of equipment and data-information services which collectively contribute to meeting the needs of marine research in Australia. The observing system provides data in the open oceans around Australia as well as the coastal waters. The in situ data when combined with satellite data, enables the modeling required to explain the role of the oceans in seasonal prediction and climate change. Sustaining the project will allow identification and management of climate change in the coastal marine environment. It will also provide an observational nexus to better understand and predict the fundamental connections between coastal biological processes and regional/oceanic phenomena that influence biodiversity. In this paper we introduce the New South Wales node of the Integrated Marine Observing System (NSW-IMOS), one of 5 regional nodes. The oceans play a key role in the variability of the Australian climate, the global heat and carbon budgets and variability of marine ecosystems. The East Australian Current flows poleward along the coast of NSW from the Coral Sea to the Tasman Sea. It impacts the coastal ocean along its path, particularly along the coast of southeastern Australia where the EAC and its eddy field dominates the shelf circulation. The primary goals of NSW-IMOS are to: 1) Quantify the seasonal and annual variation in EAC along the coast of southeastern Australia and to identify key continental shelf processes; 2) Make sustained observations of the coastal separation of the EAC and the resulting eddy dynamics and biological consequences; 3) Determine the biological response to oceanographic and climate effects (eddies, upwelling, rainfall, dust storms), from fish movements, to phytoplankton communities, to benthic habitats. We will achieve these goals through an integrated monitoring program along the NSW continental shelf (Figure 1) which includes: 1) Establishing a national reference transect of 8 oceanographic moorings, supported by a high frequency coastal radar; 2) Monthly biogechemical sampling near the oceanographic moorings supported by autonomous ocean gliders 3) Deploying two cross-shelf transects of acoustic receivers (“listening posts”) from the shore to the shelf break off Sydney and off Coffs Harbour, and using an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV); The data is being made available freely and in a timely fashion through the IMOS data portal eMII (http://imos.aodn.org.au/webportal/). The expected outputs from NSW-IMOS will be knowledge of the latitudinal gradient in EAC effects and climate impacts; the availability of near-real-time in situ observations that could be used to evaluate or initialise ocean models, such as Bluelink; evidence-based prediction of the biophysical response to climate impacts on beaches and coastal lowlands; contributing to evidence-based planning for marine parks; estimates of larval connectivity along the coast of southeastern Australia, amongst estuaries (and ports) as well as among marine parks; predictions of fish landings based on rainfall and oceanographic variation. Of course the benefit to the general public cannot be overlooked, for example, through an extension of NSW-IMOS data products to high schools, the public and the media (especially over the internet) of products such as temperature and velocity fields, shark tracks and glider paths. Other outputs are the post-graduate research theses and associated publications resulting from IMOS activities.

The demand for operational monitoring and forecasting systems in Arctic Ocean is growing as a consequence of climate change and increasing human activities in the area, but there is a severe lack of systematic observations of the deep Arctic Ocean. The GMES project MyOcean (2009-2011) develops and implements operational monitoring and forecasting system for global and regional oceans, including the Arctic. MyOcean combines observations from different satellite remote sensing techniques and in-situ open ocean measurements (mainly Argo floats and moorings) with ocean circulation models through advanced assimilation techniques. Satellites can sufficiently monitor changes in surface properties of the polar oceans, such as formation and retreat of sea ice, while the interior of the ocean is poorly observed and remains largely unknown both in ice-covered and ice-free areas, since the water mass is opaque to electromagnetic waves. Furthermore, the system of Argo floats, which is an important component of the global open ocean observing (GOOS) system, cannot be implemented in polar ice-covered waters. Correspondingly, the internal of the Arctic Ocean is not monitored on a systematic basis, and this represents a significant gap in the Global Ocean Observing System. Several new observing technologies based on acoustics such as Acoustic Ice Tethered Platforms (AITP), acoustic navigation systems for float and glider operations under the ice and acoustic tomography/thermometry are developed in the EU projects DAMOCLES IP (2005-2010) (http://www.damocles.eu.org) and ACOBAR (2008-2012) (http://acobar.nersc.no). Acoustic tomography provides measurements of acoustic travel times between acoustic sources and receivers. Through inversion techniques, internal ocean temperature can be retrieved at an accuracy of 0.01°C over a 200 km distance. In the same way, precise measurements of average current velocities can be determined from the difference between reciprocal travel times produced by simultaneous transmission of acoustic pulses in opposite directions along an acoustic path. OceanObs'99 identified high-latitude regions and the Arctic Ocean as key areas where ocean acoustic tomography should be applied. Stand-alone acoustic tomography systems in Arctic regions have been developed and successfully tested in ice covered regions, such as in the 1-year-long Greenland-Sea Experiment, the 7-year-long experiment in the Labrador Sea, the Trans-Arctic Acoustic Propagation (TAP) Experiment, and the 14-month long ACOUS experiment in the central Arctic Ocean. It is recommended to establish an integrated observation and modeling system for the Arctic combining acoustic tomography, oceanographic fields from gliders, floats and fixed profiling moorings, satellite remote sensing data and coupled ice-ocean models. The observed data will be assimilated into the ice-ocean models in order to provide monitoring and forecasting of the sea ice and ocean conditions. It is recommended to design and implement a cost-efficient, multi-purpose infra-structure for tomography, navigation/positioning of gliders and floats under ice, and standard oceanographical moorings. Furthermore, the acoustic system can be used for monitoring of ambient noise and marine mammals in the polar regions. The anticipated increase of human activities in the Arctic will lead to higher noise levels, e.g. from fishing vessels, oil and gas installations, seismic exploration and ship transportation. The observing system can therefore be used to assess the impact of increasing ambient noise levels on marine mammals. The implementation of multi-purpose observing system will build on experience from the previous acoustic tomography experiments in the central Arctic Ocean and the regional acoustic system currently under implementation in the Fram Strait within DAMOCLES and ACOBAR projects.

Acoustic telemetry provides the means to track movements and gather other data from fish as small as 10 centimetres. However, in the cases of fish that undergo large migrations, the amount of information available is limited by the extent of receiver networks that can be installed. In recent years, collaborative initiatives like the Pacific Ocean Shelf Tracking Project (POST), the Australian acoustic Tracking and Monitoring Systems (AATAMS, the Ocean Tracking Network (OTN) and others have started to address this issue by installing extensive arrays of receivers in various high interest areas. For example, the POST infrastructure includes a number of acoustic curtains extending from California to Alaska with the initial intent of determining what was happening to salmon smolt when they leave the rivers and enter the ocean. In addition, the arrays have provided valuable data on the migration of a number of other species. These collaborative initiatives have been the catalyst for many new and valuable projects as researchers can often take advantage of existing receiving infrastructure with significant savings in time and effort over project-specific installations.

The objective of this poster is to stimulate discussion with a view to adding a relatively small amount of information of high economic value about animal movements to existing and future ocean observation systems. The technology can be as simple as a small, low power module that would easily integrate into the platform; such modules are readily available today. This alone, by greatly expanding areas of coverage, would dramatically impact the applicability of acoustic telemetry and the value of data obtained. Future technology could be more closely integrated allowing for communication between satellite and acoustic technologies increasing the amount and timeliness of data collected.

The wide use of ocean observatories provides an opportunity to exploit emerging Integrated Tag technology to obtain far more information of fish movements and behaviour than is currently the case. For the large majority of species too small to carry an electronic tag incorporating a satellite transmitter, tags fall into two classes:

1. Data storage Tags which store sensor values in memory with data recovered when and if the fish is recaptured
2. Acoustic Telemetry Tags which transmit sensor data in real time.

Iridium Satellite LLC is offering the unique opportunity to fly EO payloads on the NEXT constellation of 66 LEO satellites, due for launch from 2013 through 2016.

The proposition of this public-private partnership has been actively pursued since Jan 2007, federated by the Group on Earth Observation. Now more than 10 missions are under consideration, some more advanced than others, but there is truly international involvement.

Monitoring and mitigating Global Climate Change is the underlying theme, with ocean observations at the forefront.

Constellations of 24 Ku Altimeters and 9 Ocean Imagers are planned and under full evaluation. Such constellations will provide unprecedented temporal and spatial coverage.

These and other missions will be discussed and progress reported.

Over the past decade, Argo floats have provided an unprecedented number of profiles of the global oceans (to 2000 m depth), far surpassing the number collected historically from ship-based hydrography. The original design of the Argo mission specified nominal 3 x 3 degree spacing, with 10 day sampling interval, of the oceans between 60 °N and 60 °S, excluding the high latitudes and marginal seas. The exclusion of the high latitudes was due to the inability of early floats to sample under sea-ice. Technological advances in float design in recent years now give us this capability. Advancements have come through re-design of hardware (i.e. armoured ice floats), software (ice-avoidance algorithm and open-water test) and communications (Iridium), allowing the transmission of stored winter profiles. Observing circulation in seasonally ice-covered seas is challenging. To date, most observations have been made during ice-free summer periods and consequently the winter circulation beneath the sea-ice is not well understood. Despite this, Argo has already made a significant contribution to high latitude research with successful deployments of floats in the polar oceans of both hemispheres. As of December 2008, over 100 floats had been deployed above 60 °N and over 200 below 60 °S. Approximately 60% of these floats are still active (the failure rate of early floats was high as the ice-capable technology was being developed and tested). Mortality rates of newer ice floats are now equivalent to those deployed in less demanding conditions. In fact, a number of floats deployed in the Weddell Sea have survived for 7 years (surpassing 225 profiles) equal to some of the longest-lived floats deployed globally. The high latitudes are important deep water mass formation regions. The Southern Ocean connects the global ocean basins and regulates the meridional overturning circulation. The exposed Arctic Ocean will have important consequences for ocean and atmospheric circulation, moisture and heat fluxes. Therefore, both polar regions play a critical role in setting the rate and nature of global climate variability through their moderation of the earth's heat, freshwater and carbon budgets. Recent studies have shown that certain regions at high latitudes are warming more rapidly than the global average. Some of the most important climate change signals are seen near ice shelves and within the sea ice zone. In the Arctic, reductions in sea-ice extent and changes in freshwater fluxes, deep water mass properties and convection have been observed. Similarly strong reductions in sea-ice coverage are occurring near the Antarctic Peninsula while small increases appear in the Ross Sea. At the same time decreasing salinity on the Ross Sea shelf is thought to be linked to increased glacial melt. The Argo network has been crucial for documenting the recent changes in the open ocean; robust and large-scale freshening of the Southern Ocean has been observed from Argo and historical hydrographic data. But sampling at these higher latitudes is less systematic than for the rest of the globe. Therefore, observations of high latitude oceans in both hemispheres should be a top priority. In considering sampling strategies for the high latitudes we recommend extending the Argo network beyond 60 °S and 60 °N through the deployment of ice-capable floats at the nominal density (3 x 3 degrees). In addition, regional arrays of acoustically-tracked floats will provide a more focused effort on basin scales. An established array of sound-sources (RAFOS) and acoustically-tracked floats in the Weddell Sea is already yielding valuable information on ocean circulation and structure beneath the sea-ice. A similar array should be established to sample the Ross Sea gyre. In the Arctic, an array of low frequency (< 100 Hz) sound sources would be required to provide basin-wide geo-location for profiling floats. Now that we have come to review the past decade of progress within Argo, we find there is considerable support and justification for the official extension of the Argo array into the seasonally ice-covered seas. Sustained, comprehensive observation of the polar oceans is required to adequately monitor global climate change signals. This can only be achieved in a broad-scale and cost-effective way by using autonomous platforms like Argo profiling floats. It is thus imperative that a commitment is made to enhance and maintain a profiling float array in the high latitudes. The extension of the core Argo array beyond 60 degrees in both hemispheres will ensure that it remains one of the most important and truly global components of the ocean observing system.