Euro-Argo: a global ocean monitoring program

The recent years have shown that there is a lack of environmental observations, especially in the deep parts of the ocean. Thus the estimates of the global climate change and its regional impact are inaccurate. Global effects are caused by a mix of long-term climate change, natural variability and antropogenic influence, and continuous monitoring is needed in order to determine the contribution of each factor. Argo is the first global, in-situ ocean observing network in the history of oceanography, providing an essential complement to satellite systems. It is now the major source of information over the ocean’s interior. The international ARGO programme was initiated in 1999 and at present the Argo network comprises a global array of more than 3000 autonomous profilers, deployed over the world ocean. The floats measure the subsurface ocean properties and send the data via satellite transmission to data centres. Euro-Argo is the European contribution to the international program and the objective is to ensure the deployment of about 800 floats. The consortium consists of governmental and scientific institutions from 12 European countries. The float deployment, data management, applications and the benefits to the end users will be discussed.

@InProceedings{Pen12,
  author       = {Peneva, E.},
  title        = {Euro-Argo: a global ocean monitoring program},
  booktitle    = {Collana seminari interni 2012},
  number       = {20121010},
  month        = {october},
  year         = {2012},
  keywords     = {ocean monitoring, climate observations},
  url          = {https://publications.crs4.it/pubdocs/2012/Pen12},
}