The ARGO Project: Global Ocean Observations for Understanding and Prediction of Climate Variability. Report for Calendar Year 2004

A National Oceanographic Partnership Program Award. Award Numbers: NA17RJ1231 (SIO), NA17RJ1223 (WHOI). Prepared in cooperation with the School of Oceanography, University of Washington, Seattle WA; the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA; NOAA Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory, Miami FL; and the NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, Seattle WA. The original document contains color images.

Argo is a global array of 3,000 free-drifting profiling floats that measure the temperature and salinity of the upper 2,000 meters of the ocean. This allows, for the first time, continuous monitoring of the temperature, salinity, and velocity of the upper ocean, with all data being relayed and made publicly available within hours after collection. The Argo array provides unprecedented views of the evolving physical state of the ocean. It reveals the physical processes that balance the large-scale heat and freshwater budgets of the ocean and provides a crucial data set for initialization of and assimilation in seasonal-to-decadal forecast models. Argo is central to an unprecedented capability for global assessment of the evolving climate state of the ocean. The thermal structure of the upper ocean controls the temperature of the lower atmosphere, and is the primary variable defining the physical environment of ocean ecosystems. Over 90% of the increased heat content due to global warming of the air/sea/ice climate system in the past 40 years occurred in the oceans. Climate stresses on ocean ecosystems have serious consequences, and sometimes dramatic ones, such as coral reef bleaching. In the future, the impacts of a varying climate on the health of the seas and coastal ecosystems will become an increasingly important aspect of resource management. The unique niche of the Argo array is to provide global broad-scale observations of the upper ocean. This report covers Year 3 of the 5-year project, and builds on progress made by previous awards (Phases 1 and 2) for pilot float arrays, data systems development, and international coordination. In 2004, 390 conductivity, temperature, and depth (CTD) profiling floats were deployed. Float deployments targeted the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, and Southern Oceans.