Green Cables for ocean and climate monitoring and disaster warning Erica Campilongo, ITU

Why are sensors required? Tsunami  East Japan, 11 March 2011  15,883 deaths  US$235 billion Why are sensors required? Global Climate Change

The Initiative The deep ocean is largely unknown… There is a need and opportunity to extend observations and monitoring over much wider area of the global oceans

How could submarine cables be used as a real-time global network to monitor climate change and to provide tsunami warnings? A new generation of regional scientific cabled ocean observatories is emerging

Submarine telecommunication cables equipped with sensors to measure key variables such as water temperature, pressure and acceleration on the ocean floor are viewed as vital to monitor climate change and to provide tsunami warnings.

ITU with UNESCO-IOC and the WMO established a joint task force (JTF) tasked to investigate using submarine telecommunications cables for ocean and climate monitoring and disaster warning  over 80 international experts from the science, engineering, business and law communities

Five Committees 1.Science and Society 2.Business Models 3.Engineering 4. Legal 5. Publicity, Outreach and Marketing

Three reports were commissioned and published on Strategy and Roadmap, Engineering Feasibility, and Opportunities and Legal Framework. Three reports were commissioned and published on Strategy and Roadmap, Engineering Feasibility, and Opportunities and Legal Framework.

JTF Vision and Goals  Define needs  Prove technical feasibility  Build trust and confidence  Demonstrate impact  Estimate costs  Identify partners  Draw up business model  Study legal aspects  Sketch out a pilot project for development and deployment of an initial “green cable” system

Distributed seabed sensors across oceans have unique value Without such sensors we cannot really understand ocean processes Submarine telecommunications systems offer a platform for these sensors Supporting such sensors would be a positive gesture by system owners

Links & Additional Information Joint Task Force: Contact Hiroshi Ota and Erica Campilongo: Join the JTF!