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| | | Monitoring and Observing Systems |
Maintained by IOC
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|  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... | | |  Argo 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 | | | | |
 | | | | | Ship-sinking monster waves revealed by ESA satellites
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| | Once dismissed as a nautical myth, freakish ocean waves that rise as tall as ten-storey apartment blocks have been accepted as a leading cause of large ship sinkings. Results from ESA's ERS satellites helped establish the widespread existence of these 'rogue' waves and are now being used to study their origins. | |
Read more at http://www.esa.int/expor ... ng_0.html.
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