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Monitoring and Observing Systems Maintained by IOC  
        
The vastness of the global oceans, the amount of information they contain and their relevance to society qualify them as an international research priority. Furthermore, current issues such as inter alia: global climate change and sea-level rise, marine ecosytem degradation - including the collapse of fisheries around the world and pollution, and the occurrance of extreme events such as tsunamis and El Niño/Southern Oscillation - requires not only a scientific understanding the global oceans and its systems, but also a knowledge of and familiarity with its patterns over time. To meet this need there are numerous international efforts to promote programmes for various monitoring and observing systems, with a global scope, for the world's oceans.

Image of recent seismic activity in the Pacific. Courtesy of NOAA.   See More...

 
Image of Argo floatsArgo floats are deployed to measure sea temperature and salinity and compose part of GCOS, GOOS and GODAE. Argo is an international project to collect information on the upper part of the world's oceans. Currently there are 1500 ocean-traveling float instruments operating. By 2006 there will be 3000 floats producing 100,000 temperature and salinity profiles per year. Applications include: ocean heat storage and climate change; ocean salinity changes due to rainfall; ocean-driven events such as El Niño; impacts of ocean temperature on fisheries and regional ecosystems; interactions between the ocean and monsoons; and how the oceans drive hurricanes and typhoons.
Photo title: Image of Argo floats
Photo credit: NOAA
 
 
 
 
TitleNOAA National Severe Storms Laboratory  ( WEBSITE )
DescriptionThe National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, Oklahoma conducts research to improve accurate and timely forecasts and warnings of hazardous weather events such as blizzards, ice storms, flash floods, tornadoes, and lightning. NSSL accomplishes this goal through a balanced program of research to advance the understanding of weather processes, research to improve forecasting and warning techniques, development of operational applications, and transfer of understanding, techniques, and applications to the National Weather Service and other agencies.
KeywordsSEVERE STORMS LABORATORY; FORECAST
Geography KeywordsNORTH AMERICA; US
Content Language(s)English
Web Address (URL)http://www.oar.noaa.gov/ ... tml#start
Type of WebsiteInstitutional website
  
1076 Topics - 5135 Related Knowledge - 2534 Members - 34 Editors
generationTime:2005/01/13 12:04:52