As operational oceanographic near-real-time data
collection is in its infancy, an infrastructure like
that existing for meteorology needs to be established by the national oceanographic services
coordinated through the new IOC/WMO Joint
Commission for Oceanography and Marine Meteorology (JCOMM). This should take advantage of
the strong push of the scientific community in
CLIVAR and GODAE for an upper ocean observing system. In other words: We need a strong
Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS) as a
component of the Global Climate Observing
System (GCOS). As major changes in the global
thermohaline ocean circulation cannot be ruled
out for the twenty-first century, deep ocean conditions need to be monitored as a matter or urgency.
Many of the goals of WOCE have already been
reached, and many more answers will be found
during the AIMS phase. As well as achieving many
of their scientific goals, WOCE and TOGA have
also achieved another very important goal – they
have demonstrated the feasibility and urgency of a
global ocean observing system. If implemented, it
will see several new applications: ocean weather
forecasting, global seasonal to interannual climate
variability predictions, and the understanding of
decadal time scale climate variability that leads to
easier detection, attribution and projection of climate change. What is now required is the will –
the national and international commitments – to
implement the needed observational programme.
1.1 Climate and Oceans
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