Recent technological developments have made the Cooperative Ocean Observing Experiment (COOE) possible COOE is an exciting new approach to monitoring Australia's oceans and understanding the climatic and biological implications of ocean processes. These developments include:

• The outstanding success of satellite missions enabling sea surface height, currents and ocean colour (i.e. phytoplankton) to be monitored in near real time.
• A new capability using autonomous floats to measure temperature and salinity profiles anywhere in the upper two kilometres of the ocean, and new sensors to measure chemical and biological parameters from ships.
• Powerful supercomputers that can accommodate fine-scale models of the oceans.

The capability to communicate satellite and in situ observations to an analysis centre within hours and to incorporate data in the ocean models will provide, for a comparatively small investment, real-time and predictive maps of Australia's oceans. Internationally, this capability will revolutionise the practice of marine science and its applications. Business, industry and government will be able to use these maps in much the same way as Australians use weather charts.

COOE will use the latest technological advances in satellite remote sensing, in situ instruments and super-computing to monitor physical, chemical and biological structures of the oceans.

COOE has three core elements:

• satellite measurements of the ocean, including sea surface height, wind stress, temperature and colour,
• in situ observations of temperature and salinity to 1500m with free drifting floats, and direct measurements of chemical and biological parameters with volunteer observing ships,
• maps of ocean-properties and simulations of oceanic conditions in near real-time with a fine-scale ocean model.

COOE will provide (in some cases for the first time in Australia):

• real-time three-dimensional and time-dependent maps of synoptic physical conditions over the continental slope and nearby oceans (similar to the familiar weather charts for the atmosphere)
• chemical and biological measurements in selected areas over the continental shelf
• boundary conditions for coastal zone applications
• information on the influence of ocean conditions on near-shore ecosystems
• improved predictions of ocean and climate variability
• detection and attribution of climate change (including regional warming and sea-level rise)
• demonstration of the feasibility of real-time ocean data collection and analysis.

Current Status of the COOE Project

Ten automated profiling floats have been deployed in the north east Indian Ocean. Four roughly along 12S in international waters between Christmas Island and the Northwest Shelf of Australia, three along the IX1 XBT line and the remaining three near (24S,110E), (17S,118E) and (14S,114E). Four floats were deployed by RV Franklin, 4 by merchant ships along IX1 and 2 by the Royal Australian Navy.

The floats are programmed for an 'Argo' mission: that is, to drift at 2000m and profile to the surface every 10 days. Manufactured and ballasted by Webb Research Corporation through the Service, these R1 Palace floats are equipped with Seabird CTD's, delivering temperature and salinity values from 50 depths.

A package for measuring and logging temperature, salinity, fluorescence and PAR was installed on the merchant vessel P&O Nedlloyd Brisbane on 28 November, 1999. The package has run continuously since that time, collecting data on 4 completed voyages circumnavigating Australia. A CSIRO scientist travels on the vessel approximately one-third of the time, calibrating and servicing instruments, and collecting phytoplankton samples for measurement of HPLC pigments and spectral absorption.