Keith AlversonOcean Observations and Services

Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO

NASA, NOAA, JCOMMOPS, FNMOC, CRT, URK

Outline of this talk

1. What is GOOS2. Some lessons learned.3. Developing Arctic and Southern Ocean

regional observing systems4. Developing a biological module5. Updating the Equation of State for Seawater6. Sustaining GOOS

GOOS provides

• International and intergovernmental coordination of sustained ocean observations

• A platform for the generation of oceanographic products and services

• A forum for interaction between research, operational, and user communities

GOOS is designed to

• Monitor and better understand climate• Improve weather and climate prediction• Provide ocean forecasts• Improve management of marine and coastal

ecosystems and resources• Mitigate damage from natural hazards and

pollution• Protect life and property on coasts and at sea• Enable scientific research

IOC, UNEP, WMO and ICSU (Sponsored by)

GEO, CEOS, WIGOS… (Member of)

JCOMM, IODE, GCOS, WCRP (partner programs at IOC)

SCOR, POGO, ICES, PICES, IASC, SCAR, GEOSS, GCOS, GTOS, Scientific Unions, National Agencies (external cooperation)

Argo, GLOSS, DBCP, OTN, Regional Alliances (provide contributions to)

GOOS works in partnership with:

GOOS is comprised of:

• A climate moduleThe GOOS climate module is the ocean component of the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS)Advised by the Ocean Observations Panel for Climate (OOPC)Implemented by member states usually cooperating through the Joint WMO-IOC Commission for Oceanography and Marine Meteorology (JCOMM)

• A coastal moduleAdvised by a Panel on Integrated Coastal Observations (PICO)Implemented by member states usually cooperating through GOOS regional alliances.

• Pilot Projectseg. Arctic, Southern Ocean, Ocean Tracking Network ...

Major Accomplishments to date include:

1. Global GOOS. The open ocean observing system for climate is approximately 60% complete. Understanding of global climate change has been substantially enhanced.

2. Coastal GOOS. The coastal ocean observing system strategy and implementation plans are approved. National coastal zone management programs have benefitted from sharing best practices.

3. Societal Benefits. Relevant components of the GOOS are used for operational hazard warnings.

The ARGO array of profiling floats from 2003 to 2006 -successful evolution of a pilot project

The Argo network has achieved its initial design target.Sustaining the network remains a major challenge.

The Argo network has achieved its initial design target.Sustaining the network remains a major challenge.

> 3000 Floats

Degree of completion of the initial design targets for the climate module of the Global Ocean Observing System as of September 2008as reported to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Outline of this talk

1. What is GOOS2. Some lessons learned3. Developing Arctic and Southern Ocean

regional observing systems4. Developing a biological module5. Updating the Equation of State for Seawater6. Sustaining GOOS

2003 to 2005 cooling:-1.0 ± 0.33 W/m2

(Averaged over Earth’s surface)

Cooling!!!

from from Lyman et al.Lyman et al. ((GRLGRL, 2006), 2006)

Upper-Ocean “cooling”

Changing Ocean Observing System

Latitude

YearTechnology changes and bias issues are now being recognised –

- warm bias in XBT’s (Gouretski and Koltermann, GRL 2007)

- ‘spurious’ recent upper ocean cooling (Lyman et al, GRL 2006) Wijffels et al, in press 2008

Some Lessons Learned …

Thompson et al, Nature, 2008

- Thompson et al, 2008: spurious 1945 global temperature reconstruction drop from UK’s postwar resumption of uninsulated bucket SST measurements.

Changing Ocean Observing System

Forest and Reynolds, Nature, 2008

Two different

Reputable

Arctic Sea Ice Extent Anomaly

Analyses

Degree of completion of the initial design targets for the climate module of the Global Ocean Observing System as of September 2008as reported to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Lessons learned from ocean climate monitoring …Develop sustained and integrated national ocean

observing commitments

National contributions and commitments were confirmed at the Intergovernmental Committee for GOOS (I-GOOS) meeting June, 2007, UNESCO/IOC headquarters, Paris … But governmental engagement and willingness to commit multilaterally must be strengthened.

Alverson and Baker, Science, 314:1657, 2006

WHY develop SAON and SOOS?

Alverson EOS, 89:39, 2008

Implementing Coastal and Regional GOOS

1st GOOS Regional Forum, Athens, Greece, 2002

2nd GOOS Regional Forum, Nadi, Fiji, 2004

3rd GOOS Regional Forum, Cape Town, S. Africa, 2006

4th GRA Forum, Guayaquil, Ecuador, November, 2008

SAON

SOOS

Observing climate change …

… Human Impact on Marine Ecosystems is:substantial, global, but not climate dominated

Halpern et al, Science, 319: 948-52, 2008

Operational near real time data stream from the Arctic (left) and Southern (right) ocean components of the Global Ocean Observing System reported over the WMO Global Telecommunication Network in August 2008.

Near real time reporting tide gauges monitoring sea level globally as part of the Global Sea Level Observing System (GLOSS) on September 23, 2008 at 15h30 GMT.

Prudhoe Bay near real-time tide gauge on September 23, 2008 at 15h30 GMT as captured by the IOC sea level station monitoring facility.

Planned research vessel cruises contained in the POGO database in late September 2008. Of the four cruises indicated four had already been completed and one was underway.

?

Predictions require monitoring

WHAT existing elements might be brought together as an initial system?

Bremen, 1-3 October 2007.

St. Petersburg, 5-7 July 2008.

Stockholm, 12-14 November 2007

Alberta, 9-11 April 2008 - Engage Governments

St. Petersburg, 7 July 2008 - Russian Community

Helsinki, 15-17 October 2008 - Final Plan

Arctic Council Arctic Council SalekhardSalekhard DeclarationDeclaration 20062006

”Urge all Member countries to maintain and extend long term monitoring of change in all parts of the Arctic, and request AMAP to cooperate with other AC Working Groups, IASC and other partners in efforts to create a

coordinated Arctic Observing network that meets identified societal needs”

“GOOS should become engaged with the Southern Ocean Observing System, the Sustained Arctic Observing Network and Arctic ROOS, with a view to creating sustained polar observing systems which will grow out

of the successful International Polar Year activities……the Executive Council decided that consideration of the legacies of the IPY and IYPE

would be put on the Provisional Agenda of the 25th Session of IOC Assembly (2009)”

IOC IOC ExecutiveExecutive Council 2008Council 2008

Human Impact on Marine Ecosystems:influences nonlinear ecosystem dynamics

Anderson et al, Nature, 452: 835-39, 2008(this figure from Stenseth and Rouyer, N&V, ibid)

Kiribati creates world's largest marine reserve (14 Feb 2008, Reuters)

Kiribati says it needs more money to pay for surveillance against illegal fishing as well as develop a trust fund, possibly as large as $100 million, to pay for running costs and compensate the government for lost income from commercial fishing licenses.

Higher ocean CO2 leads to Acidification.

www.ocean-acidification.net

By the end of this century, if concentrations of CO2 continue to rise exponentially, we may expect to see changes in pH that are three times greater and 100 times faster than those experienced during the transitions from glacial to interglacial periods. How ecosystems will be affected is unknown.

How will ecosystems be affected?

Source: Emerson (2005)

Developing country net exports of commodities

Developed

Developed Developing

Developing

Fish Trade flows, 2003 (in US$ billions)

Source: Emerson (2005)

WHAT existing elements might be brought together as an initial system?

OTN Arrays and Partner Institutions

Oxygen sensors on Argo float array

Continuous Plankton Recorder 75 year record!

Ocean Color• IOCCG, CholorGIN, Antares, SAFARI…

CoML and OBIS

Observation and population data for all species of the tuna genus Thunnus mapped on a global scale. (Ocean Biogeographic Information System - OBIS)

CoML project map

HOW might governance and political commitments be enabled?

GEO-BON?I-GOOS?

CBD?GRAME?

A multi-user, multi purpose system

Alverson, Nature, 434:19-20, 2005

Bridge the research-operational divide“A comprehensive ocean observing system simply cannot exist without the full engagement of the oceanographic research community”

Alverson, IOC Annual Report, 38-39, 2005

• improve deployment opportunities for autonomous platforms (eg. Argo, drifters)

• facilitate data availability, archiving

•Ensure high quality ‘research’ data contributes to the sustained data flow of GOOS

Outreach and CommunicationNo lack of high profile public interest stories:Global WarmingSea level RiseRed TidesPacific Garbage GyresOcean AcidificationFisheries Collapses

Outreach: Better engage governments, the research community and the private sector.

IAPSO/IAMAS/IACS Joint Assembly, Montreal 19-29 July, 2009Session J01 – Observations of High Latitude Climate Change

UNFCCC SBSTA (Bonn, 1-12 June, 2009) and COP (Copenhagen, 1-12 December, 2009).

OceanObs’09 21-25 September, 2009. Venice, Italy

Outreach: Better use of the web

Sustain and Integrate

• Avoid being everything for everyone!• Synergy can be negative. Incentivize!• GEOSS? WIGOS? SAON?• UNFCCC COP ? UNESCO Convention?

Where are the Gaps in GOOS?

~ 40% of the planned in-situ GOOS climate network ($)

Polar regions and deep ocean (Technology development, $)

Developing countries (Capacity building, $)

Non-physical variables (Users, Technology development, $)

Integrated data products (Users, $)

Real time operations (Technology development, $)

Sustainability - eg ARGO network, Satellite altimeters ($)

Integration with other systems (Users)

Near real time reporting tide gauges monitoring sea level globally as part of the Global Sea Level Observing System (GLOSS) on September 23, 2008 at 15h30 GMT (www.vliz.be/gauges/map.php).

Implementation by nations

JCOMM OPA, NOAA/OCO

UK NTSLF

Planned research vessel cruises contained in the POGO database in late September 2008. Of the four cruises indicated four had already been completed and one was underway.

Adoption by Governments, then …

Practical salinity scale 1978 and the international equation of state of seawater 1980.

1981

Algorithms for computation of fundamental properties of seawater

1983

Salinity and density of seawater: Tables for high salinities (42-50)

1991

Past UNESCO/IOC Standards

Who will needs to adopt the new equation of state for seawater?

Researchers. Including individual data collectors and modelers in physical, chemical and biological oceanography as well as climatologists. Also scientific unions. Minimal United Nations (IOC) role.

Industry. A broad range of companies including data collectors and modelers. Could potentially effect manufacturers of salinity measuring devices. Minimal United Nations (IOC) role.

Governments. Including national oceanographic, environmental, fisheries and research agencies as well as navies. Lead United Nations (IOC) role.

Standards are not ideal, nor for everyone …

Adoption by the Scientific Community

① IAPSO/SCOR Working Group WG 127 on thermodynamics and equation of state of report.

② Peer reviewed publications. ③ Endorsement of scientific unions such as SCOR, IAPSO,

AGU Ocean Sciences, IAPWS, ...④ Community uptake. “Best Practices” or “Guidelines” are

more palatable in some research communities (experience of carbon community) than “Standards”

Pathway to Adoption

Potential Concerns① Scientists don’t like to fix anything that isn’t clearly

broken.② Different adoption tasks, and hence different responses, are

likely from Data vs Modeling communities and from physical vs chemical oceanographers, from climatologists vs process researchers.

③ Climate records (eg. Salinity trend) require continuity.

Adoption by Industry

Industry might either lead or follow researchers or governments

The bottom line will always be profitA panoply of industries including

offshore drilling, aquaculture and coastal zone management.

If a new absolute salinity unit (in g/kg) replaces the existing conductivity based unit, manufacturers of CTD’s, Argo floats, Marine mammal tags, would be potentially effected.

Adoption by Governments, and now…Uptake by global operational programs

Adoption by Governments

① Call for comment by relevant, standing IOC expert groups from October to December 2008.

② Assuming no major objections, IOC secretariat to work with WG 127, leaders of IOC subsidiary bodies and interested Member States to prepare a Draft Resolution by 4/2009.

③ IOC Member States to consider and (hopefully) resolve to adopt the new equation of state 6/2009

④ Leaders of WG 127 to write the IOC technical manual and web based server for codes/algorithms by 1 January 2010.

⑤ IOC Secretariat publishes, distributes to Member States, makes widely available and promotes the new standard

Roadmap to Adoption

Potential Benefits

Adoption by Governments

① IOC Assembly Members don’t represent all relevant Government Agencies. This is a national level concern that only individual governments must deal with.

② IOC Resolutions are not binding, so there is no guarantee that Members will follow through with their resolve. This is true for many modern multilateral organizations and UN bodies

Potential Concerns

① An intergovernmental agreement will help catalyze implementation by some national ocean services.

② A resolution by IOC/UNESCO, the body that adopted the currently used equation of state, will help clarify that the new one formally replaces the old one.

How to promote…

White paper and presentation at OceanObs09 (www.oceanobs09.net), 21-25 September 2009 ?

Relevant websites and mailing lists ?

Poster/Display at major meetings (AGU, OS, IAPSO, etc) ?

HOW might commitments be enabled?

GEO? WIGOS?IOC/WMO/UNEP/ICSU?

Regional: GRAs? Arctic Council? UNEP regional seas conventions?