ANALYSIS

The Global Ocean Observing System

Keith Alverson, Head of Section, Ocean Observations and Services Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO, highlights the achievements of the Global Ocean Observing System and talks exclusively to International Innovation about their new strategies to advance techniques in ocean observation

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ANALYSIS What were some of the motivating factors underpinning the establishment of the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS), and what need did it address?
The initial drive to establish a Global Ocean Observing System came from physical oceanographers. Before about 1980, open ocean or blue water observations were almost entirely taken from a handful of research vessels, and proved very difcult to obtain. For example, to study one trans-basin section of temperature and salinity required travelling thousands of miles at about the speed of a bicycle, stopping every few hours to lower and raise instruments thousands of metres with winches operating on a wave swept and rolling deck. Given these difculties, observational campaigns were designed to address very specic scientic hypotheses. Results were published a few years later in peer-reviewed journals, and the underlying data were never made freely available. The advent of satellite measurements, particularly surface topography from altimeters, as well as routine measurements from in-situ moorings and autonomous free oating instruments, led to enormous improvements in our fundamental understanding of the ocean. To sustain GOOS however, the system needs not only to continue to serve research aims, but also to respond to user pull. In other words, GOOS observations need to underpin a wide variety of readily available products and services useful to society.

Combating climate change is a multifaceted task that includes improving our fundamental understanding of the earth system, adaptation and mitigation

What recent achievements, facilitated by GOOS, would you highlight for special attention?
Since 2007, for the rst time in history, the subsurface oceans are being systematically observed for their heat and salt content, through Argo autonomous proling oats. This, along with other elements of GOOS, have enabled scientists to determine, for example, that the Atlantic Ocean heat transport towards the North Pole important in regulating Europes climate has not changed signicantly in recent years. Systematic ocean observation also underpins all operational ocean products, including high-resolution temperature, sea ice and current maps, and such products are widely used by the shipping industry (for sheries management), and the energy industry.

How does GOOS assist governments and policy makers as well as other smaller organisations in combating climate change?
Combating climate change is a multifaceted task that includes improving our fundamental understanding of the Earth system, adaptation and mitigation. Scientists designed the climate module of GOOS with the rst of these targets in mind. Its greatest success has therefore been to allow the detection and attribution of anthropogenic impacts on climate. This has provided substantial assistance to governments, policy makers and all organisations interested in combating climate change. A major challenge for the future is recognising that combat requires a very different set of weapons from detection and attribution. Thus, it is imperative to ensure that the observing system can provide relevant, timely and useful data that will be used to underpin the development of the global framework for climate services.

Do you believe there is sufcient funding to tackle the undeniably huge environmental issues we face as a global community? Is there scope for commercial enterprise to help in shifting the way we prioritise environmental objectives?
There is no sufcient amount of funding for this problem. Instead, sustainable stewardship of the global environment will require fundamental changes in the way individuals, commercial enterprises, and governments value and interact with the environment. Fortunately though, sustaining the global ocean observing system is a much easier task for which sufcient funding could quite readily be made available. One recent estimate of the costs and benets of coordinated
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ocean observations was published in the GOOS summary for policy makers brochure in 2009. This analysis cited the value of marine activities globally at about ve per cent of GDP, or 2.7 trillion U.S. dollars. By comparison to this enormous benet, the current investment in maintaining the observing system required to underpin this economic sector is about 1 billion dollars per year, of which 500 thousand is available for coordination. Furthermore, the estimated cost for adequately sustaining the system as designed is only about 2 billion dollars per year with 2 million devoted to coordination. In short, the glass is currently about half full.

How is GOOS cooperating with other networks in the Earth monitoring system (land, space and atmosphere) and sharing data to allow a complete consolidated view of the Earth system, and environmental change across these? Are you in any partnerships with groups such as GEO (Group on Earth Observation) to promote this framework?
The value of ocean observations is dramatically increased if they are brought together as components of a coordinated global system serving multiple users. GEO is intent to build on, and add value to, existing observation systems by providing high level political visibility, coordinating, addressing critical gaps, supporting interoperability, sharing information, reaching a common understanding of user requirements, and improving delivery of information to users. This is certainly a bold and exciting vision, but it is important to recall that synergies need not always be positive in sign. For example, what would be the value of sharing protocols for interoperability between, say, sh population movement observations off the Pacic Coast of North America and glacial mass balance observations in the European Alps? Both are important, supported by strong communities of scientists and have clear societal benets, but spending too much time, money and effort coordinating them may not be worth the effort. The GEO experiment is several years old now and in order to justify its continuation we must be able to highlight specic, tangible and quantiable benets that owe their existence to this new layer of coordination, as opposed to constituent observing systems that were already in place.

The most important challenge now facing GOOS seems to be the transition from making plans to supporting the international cooperation that is necessary to maintain an operational observing system. How is this shift going to be approached, and how will GOOS increase its outreach to benet more users?
Although it is easy to identify this as our central challenge, the solution remains elusive. Enabling a shift in GOOS activities from planning to sustaining is both urgent and vital. Better outreach to users is certainly part of the solution, whilst another is stronger and higher level member state engagement, ideally underpinned by a convention. Another important aspect is better problem-driven focus on maintaining tractable observing systems rather than trying to please everyone by talking about doing everything. But the bottom line is the cooperation: there is no panacea, and even if there were, there is no one person, country or organisation who could deliver it. Success in the future lies in serving multiple users with a broad suite of products and services, which is underpinned by a multilaterally maintained and governed global ocean observing system.

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