Chapter 6 Australian Participation in GCOS/GOOS/GTOS

International Status of GCOS, GOOS and GTOS > GOOS

The Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS), which shares the same set of international sponsoring agencies as GCOS, is intended to be a scientifically designed, permanent, international system for gathering, processing, and analysing oceanographic observations on a consistent basis, and distributing data products. GOOS aims to gather data, through remote sensing and through sea surface and subsurface instrumentation, from the open ocean and coastal and shelf seas. Data and data products are to be available to all nations. The main elements of GOOS are the collection and timely distribution of oceanic data and products, assimilation of data into numerical prediction models, the development and transfer of technology, and capacity building within participating member states to develop analysis and application capability.

Planning for GOOS is being undertaken by the GOOS Steering Committee (GSC) which has the task of developing strategy and scientific plans and providing scientific oversight for implementation. The IOC/WMO/UNEP Committee for GOOS (I-GOOS) is the primary intergovernmental mechanism for implementation and support of GOOS and, in particular, provides a route for participation by the Member States of IOC (see Figure 6.5). I-GOOS has responsibility for coordinating regional participation.

Figure 6.5. The organisational structure of GOOS, showing the relationship between the GOOS Steering Committee (GSC) which oversees the implementation of GOOS Plans by its scientific and technical panels, and the IOC/WMO/UNEP Committee for GOOS (I-GOOS), which provides intergovernmental support for their design and implementation.

Scientific panels, reporting to the GSC, have been established to prepare plans for the GOOS modules. As originally conceived, GOOS consisted of five modules: marine living resources; the coastal zone; the health of the oceans; climate; and meteorological and oceanographic services. At the end of 2000, the GOOS GSC decided to integrate the planning for the first three modules under the one Coastal Ocean Observations Panel (COOP) and to rationalise its approach to space-based observations and to data management. Increased emphasis was given to consolidation of capacity building and training activities. The COOP have now consolidated the strategy and plans for the coastal seas and non-physical aspects of the open ocean into a single plan, the Integrated, Strategic, Design Plan for the Coastal Ocean Observations Module of the GOOS (published in October 2002). All climate and physical aspects of the open ocean, including aspects of the former meteorological and oceanographic services’ module, are now the responsibility of the Ocean Observations Panel for Climate (OOPC). The OceanObs Conference in 1999 reached consensus on the approach and the requirements and these were published in the Volume Ocean Observations for the 21st Century (published by the GODAE Project Office and the Bureau of Meteorology, 2001).

The Joint WMO/IOC Technical Commission on Oceanography and Marine Meteorology (JCOMM) met for the first time in 2001, in Akureyri, Iceland. JCOMM was established to oversee implementation of the physical and climate observations of GOOS as well as marine meteorological aspects of the World Weather Watch. JCOMM has four Programme Areas: (i) Observations, (ii) Data Management, (iii) Services, and (iv) Capacity Building and Training. Both GCOS and GOOS are represented at JCOMM Management Committee meetings and there has been a close working relationship with GOOS.

Australia is represented on the GOOS Steering Committee by Dr Tom Trull, Leader of the Biogeochemical Cycles Sub- Program, Antarctic Cooperative Research Centre, University of Tasmania who is a core member of the GSC.

A GOOS Project Office was established in IOC Headquarters in Paris to assist the GSC and I-GOOS in the planning and implementation process. In June 1999, an IOC Regional Programme Office was established in Perth, Western Australia, jointly supported by IOC, the Government of Western Australia and the Commonwealth Government and headed by William Erb, to facilitate the balanced development and enhancement of GOOS programs in the region. In its first three years, the Perth Office played a major role in facilitating scientific planning and regional discussions for GOOS activities in the Indian Ocean. In 2002, Indian Ocean GOOS was created and Australia is represented on its Executive Committee by Dr Neville Smith from the Bureau of Meteorology. The Perth Office has also been active in promoting GOOS in WA, through the so-called WAGOOS Consortium, and in the South Pacific through Pacific Island GOOS.

The practical implementation of GOOS is carried out through bodies with a global perspective (such as JCOMM), and through various regional bodies, mostly in relation to Coastal GOOS. The Initial Observing System (GOOS-IOS) comprises a number of pre-existing observing elements including:

• the upper ocean measurements of the Ship of Opportunity programme (SOOP);
• the meteorological observations of the Voluntary Observing Ship (VOS) network;
• data from the moored and drifting buoys coordinated by the Data Buoy Co-operation Panel (DBCP);
• data from the buoys of the Tropical Atmosphere Ocean (TAO) array set up to monitor the El Niño - Southern Oscillation phenomena in the equatorial Pacific;
• the tide gauge data from the Global Sea Level Observing System (GLOSS);
• data from the Global Temperature and Salinity Profile Programme (GTSPP);
• information from the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network (GCRMN);
• data from the Continuous Plankton Recorder Programme (CPR);
• communication through the Internet and the Global Telecommunications System (GTS) of the WMO; and
• ocean observations from the operational satellites of NOAA and other entities.

A number of regional alliances have been established to test the operation of the GOOS in specific regions including: NEARGOOS (The North East Asian seas); EuroGOOS (The Arctic, Baltic and North West Shelf of Europe); MedGOOS (The Mediterranean); GOOS-Africa; Pacific Island GOOS (PI-GOOS); IOCARIBE-GOOS (The Carribean); Indian Ocean GOOS (IOGOOS); and SEAGOOS (South East Asia).

Two major GOOS pilot projects were initiated to develop specific capacity - the Global Ocean Data Assimilation Experiment (GODAE) and Argo, the global array of profiling floats for temperature and salinity. GODAE will integrate and assimilate in situ and satellite data in real time into global ocean models in order to depict ocean circulation on time scales from a few days and space scales of a few tens of kilometres, to the scales of climate, in order to demonstrate the viability of GOOS in this domain. These projects are discussed further below. In addition, some technology demonstration pilot projects have commenced, including PIRATA (Pilot Research Array (of buoys) in the Tropical Atlantic) and RAMP (Rapid Assessment of Marine Pollution).

At its fourth session, in March 2001, the GOOS Steering Committee put forward a plan for a major international review of progress in GOOS. The plan was agreed by I-GOOS at its fifth session in June 2001 and carried out during 2002-03. The Final Report was delivered to the 21st IOC Assembly in June 2003. The major recommendations included a realignment of responsibilities between I-GOOS and GSC (with GSC reporting to I-GOOS); recasting of the terms-of-reference of both GSC and IGOOS to take into account recent developments, including JCOMM; formal designation of responsibility for Regional Alliances with I-GOOS; an option for I-GOOS to be sponsored by IOC alone; and a suggestion for an update to be produced of the overarching strategic document, the "GOOS 98" Prospectus.

GODAE and Argo

The Global Ocean Data Assimilation Experiment (GODAE), an initiative of OOPC, was launched in January 1998 after a meeting of its Steering Committee in Melbourne. A GODAE Office was established in Melbourne, within the Bureau of Meteorology Research Centre, with support from the U.S., Europe and Japan. Dr Neville Smith of BMRC was appointed as its first Director and Chair of the International GODAE Steering Team. The objective of GODAE is to demonstrate the practicality and feasibility of routine, realtime global ocean data assimilation and prediction. It provides a means of demonstrating to the operational agencies that integration of in situ and satellite data results in substantially improved model output, compared to what might be achieved without that integration. The timeline for GODAE is as follows:

• 1997: Definition of the experiment;
• 1998-1999: Feasibility studies and scoping, including observational capabilities; modelling and assimilation capabilities; computational capabilities; telemetry; communication and other data and information management requirements; likely available resources; needed infrastructure; and organisational arrangements, including international coordination;
• 1999-2002: Testing (pre-operational), including model and assimilation subcomponents; high resolution regional prototypes and/or low resolution global prototypes; data assembly methods and real-time communications;
• 2003-2005: Operational Demonstration of GODAE; and
• 2006-2007: Consolidation and Transition phase.

The GODAE Strategic Plan was published in December 2000 and is available from www.bom.gov.au/GODAE. The GODAE Implementation Plan was released in May 2002. Major initiatives are underway in the U.S., France, U.K., Norway, Japan, Canada and Australia, among others. Both global and regional prototypes are being developed. In June 2002 a Symposium was convened in Biarritz, France to discuss progress and to move the focus toward applications and users (see the GODAE web site above for a summary and access to papers).

Argo represents an ambitious initiative to populate the world’s oceans with around 3000 profiling floats by around the end of the GODAE Demonstration Phase (~ 2006). The floats take samples of temperature and salinity over the upper 2000 m around every 10 days, as well as measuring current at their parking depth. Deployment of the float network began in 2000 and around 25 percent of the needed array is in the water as of June 2003. Argo complements other in situ networks such as SOOP and the timeseries stations. Jason-1 altimetric measurements of global sea surface height anomaly together with the subsurface measurements of Argo provide information that is critical for the determination of the ocean circulation and its physical state.

The primary practical goal of Argo is to provide an enhanced real-time capability for measurement of temperature and salinity through the upper 2000 m of the ocean and contribute to a global description of the seasonal cycle and interannual variability of the upper ocean thermohaline circulation. These measurements will assist seasonal-to-interannual climate prediction and contribute to monitoring of longer-term climatic changes.

A new Pilot Project, the Ocean Information Technology Pilot Project, jointly sponsored by GOOS, JCOMM and IODE (the IOC Committee for Oceanographic Data Exchange), was established in 2002. This project builds on the strengthening relationship between IODE and JCOMM.