1. WIGOS Vision 2040 Surface Workshop
(Geneva, Switzerland, October 2016)
Marine Meteorological and Oceanographic Observations
JCOMM contribution to the WIGOS Vision 2040
Etienne Charpentier
Chief, Observing Systems Division, WMO
Neville Smith, co-Chair TPOS-2020 SC
Katy Hill, GCOS Secretariat

2. Outline Requirements addressed
Current JCOMM implementation goals and progress
Development of new implementation targets in response to new GCOS IP & RRR
The Argo example
The TPOS 2020 example
Satcom issues
Evolution and trends
Conclusion

3. WMO Application Areas Global Numerical Weather Prediction
High Resolution Numerical Weather Prediction
Nowcasting and Very Short Range Forecasting
Sub-seasonal to longer predictions
Aeronautical Meteorology
Forecasting Atmospheric Composition
Monitoring Atmospheric Composition
Providing Atmospheric Composition information to support services in urban and populated areas
Ocean Applications
Agricultural Meteorology
Hydrology
Climate Monitoring (GCOS)
Climate Applications (Other aspects, addressed by the Commission for Climatology)
Space Weather
Cross cutting:
Global Cryosphere Watch (GCW)
Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS)

4. JCOMM responding to user requirements
Currently JCOMM is essentially responding to GCOS Implementation Targets for the Ocean domain as stated in GCOS IP 2010 (GCOS No. 138)
By doing so, it is believed that NWP requirements are thereby also addressed
Additional requirements include those for marine services and metocean forecasting
Support to maritime activities, incl. transportation
Wave models
Ocean mesoscale forecasting
Tsunami monitoring …

6. Example of requirements for metocean observations (in yellow where gaps identified in SoG)
Variable
OCEAN
GNWP
HRNWP
NVSRF
SSLRP
GCOS
Surface met. (SLP, T, U) X
Surface vector wind
Sea Surface Temperature (SST)
Surface Currents
Snow (depth, water equiv.)
Ice thickness
Sea level, tides, ocean dynamic topography
Surface heat fluxes
Sea Surface Salinity
Ocean profiles (T, S)
Waves / Sea State
Visibility
Precipitation

7. Current JCOMM implementation goals and progress

8. JCOMM to develop new implementation targets in response to new GCOS IP 2016 (1/2)
O4: Development of new autonomous platforms (pilots) O27: Argo 3° x 3° (3800 units) down to 2000m O28: Argo/BGC 6° x 6° O29: 60 sections of high quality, full depth, multidisciplinary ship-based decadal survey (GO-SHIP) O30: Build & maintain OceanSITEs O31: Maintain Tropical Moored Buoy array O33: Maintain & expand meteorological moored buoys O34: Strategy & impl. of wave measurements as part of OceanSITEs & DBCP

9. JCOMM to develop new implementation targets in response to new GCOS IP 2016 (2/2)
O35: Establish & sustain in situ observations from sea-ice buoys O36: Sustain drifting buoy network (1250 units) to include SLP O37: Improved measurements from VOS O38: Sustain multi-decadal XBT/XCTD network in areas of significant value O39 to O42: pCO2 observations O43: Implement global Continuous Plankton Recorder Surveys O44: Maintain tide gauge network (GLOSS Core Network, 300 units) O45: Design and implement global network of multi-disciplinary glider missions O46: Develop global animal tagging observing system

10. The Argo example Argo objectives
Provide quantitative description of changing state of the upper ocean & patterns of ocean climate variability from months to decades, including heat and freshwater storage and transport
Enhance the value of the Jason altimeter through measurement of subsurface temperature, salinity, and velocity, with sufficient coverage and resolution to permit interpretation of altimetric sea surface height variability
Provide data for initializing ocean and coupled ocean-atmosphere forecast models, for data assimilation and for model testing
A primary focus of Argo is to document seasonal to decadal climate variability and to aid our understanding of its predictability. A wide range of applications for high-quality global ocean analyses is anticipated.

11. 3000 floats
10-day cycle
T & S profile data down to 2000m
Mini T profile near surface
Horizontal sampling at 1000m

13. The Argo example Current target: 3000 active floats
Evolutions & trends
Better coverage in marginal seas
Coverage in seasonal ice-zones
Enhanced sampling in some boundary currents and equatorial regions (for TPOS 2020)
Deep Argo (6000m, 3-10 day cycle)
Biogeochemical measurements (BGC) – 10% of current fleet (seasonal to decadal variability of biological productivity, CO2 uptake of the oceans, ocean acidification ,etc.)
New target: 3800 active floats

14. Argo in marginal seas

15. Argo in Polar regions
Southern Ocean (<60S), April 2016 (146 floats)
North Sea, April 2016
(45 floats)

16. The TPOS 2020 Example (1/6)
The current tropical moored buoy array is challenging to maintain (cost of ship time, vandalism, biofouling)
Data availability suffered in 2014 and some moorings withdrawn (TRITON)
TAO Array was initially designed for understanding of El Niño and ENSO … now well understood

17. The TPOS 2020 Example (2/6) Tropical Pacific Observing System
System is now more diverse and includes many types of observing platforms (buoys, Argo floats, ships, OceanSITEs, satellites …)
TPOS 2020
Finite lifetime project
Review, re-design and refresh the TPOS
Review user requirements for
better gridded products and model initialization
Increased understanding of critical processes & phenomena
Use new science and technology
Strengthen inter-agency cooperation, partnerships (incl. WIGOS)
Platform neutral approach, learning from WIGOS
Steering Group established

18. The TPOS 2020 Example (3/6) Focus on the TPOS Backbone
Requirements on variables
Requirements for observations: Recommendations
Implementation: Actions
Includes Evolution and Transition
Currently out for Stakeholder Review

19. The TPOS 2020 Example (4/6) Foreseen/likely evolutions
Satellite data complementing in situ
Some moored buoy for satellite calibration and continuous sampling over wide band of frequencies (and include surface flux measurements)
More near-equatorial measurements
Some higher frequency measurements helping to interpret coarser measurements
Argo (incl. ~ 6000m) uniquely resolves the vertical density structure over global ocean and add salinity
Gliders and other autonomous vehicles

20. The TPOS 2020 Example (5/6) Evolving from a grid to a regime focus
A “bow-tie” configuration focuses moorings.
Enhancements:
across ITCZ/SPCZ
denser near equator

21. The TPOS 2020 Example (6/6) Output Schedule
OceanObs ‘19
WMO Congress
IOC Assembly
Establish TPOS
Interim implementation
Handover of responsibility
2019
First
A sequence of major Reports plus outcomes reported through SC
More information:

22. Satellite data Telecommunication (Satcom)
Cg-17 established Satcom Forum
1st meeting in Madrid (27-29 Sept. 2016)
Explore the possibility of establishing a “WMO branded disaster alerting tariff”
Pay attention to LDC & SIDS with aim to facilitate their use of Satcom
Issues for collecting data from marine observing systems
Global coverage
Latency of data
Cost of telecommunication
Transceivers energy consumption, omnidirectional antennas
Data processing for real-time distribution via WIS
Particle flux at orbital altitude can impact satellite operations in polar regions
For Polar regions, very few manufacturers (if any) offer modems that will work reliably at temperatures below -40C

23. Technology evolution and trends for ocean observing (1/2)
High data rate, low power, economical Satcom
HF Radars in coastal regions (waves, currents)
Commercial ships designed for making metocean observations
IR measurements from ships for satellite validation
Partnerships with tourist ship, fishing vessels
New autonomous platforms (sailing drones, surface- and sub-surface- gliders, AUVs …)
Use of smart technologies for adaptive sampling

24. Technology evolution and trends for ocean observing (2/2)
Use of renewable energy power sources
Multi-disciplinary observing platforms
Cost-effective global wave observations based on GPS & MEMS
Deep ocean Argo (6000m, under ice operations)
User of acoustic technology (precipitation, wind)
Autolaunchers (ASAP, XBTs)
Instrumented animals
Submarine telecommunication cables

25. Conclusion
Global ocean observing system in situ observing component evolving to make best use of lessons learned, evolving user requirements, new technologies, and to better complement satellite data
JCOMM Working at new implementation targets in response to new GCOS IP and RRR
New observing system design initiatives e.g. TPOS 2020 showing example for future evolutions of global ocean observing system
OceanObs 2019 conference will be reviewing plans and options for following 10 years
Evolution of Satcom systems will also influence technology to be used for ocean observing
Sustaining the observing system will remain key in the foreseeable future
Existing partnerships to be strengthened, and expand with new communities, including third parties, and the industry
WMO should be encouraging stronger engagement of NMHSs towards implementation of the global ocean observing system in response to climate requirements, and marine services

26. Thank you