The oceans are central to the history, health, economy, security, and future of this nation. Knowledge of the ocean--globally and especially in our coastal areas--is demanded by many constituencies, including climatologists, fishermen and fisheries managers, harbor pilots, coastal zone managers, Navy and Coast Guard commanders, Public Health Service officers, environmental protection professionals, commercial and recreational boat and ship operators, weather forecasters, and the offshore mining and oil industry.

Many of these needs are being partially met by existing ocean observing system elements, both satellite and in situ. These have not developed in an integrated manner and have been funded and operated to meet their own purposes. Some of these elements are in danger of disappearing, even though their needs remain, while other useful elements could be deployed for broad applicability, but there is no clear route to testing, maturity, funding, and operational implementation. In short, the need for national ocean information is similar to the need for national weather information--it serves the broad public good. Unlike weather information, however, a considerable fraction of the existing ocean observations is funded, managed, and utilized by many different groups, agencies, institutions, and individuals, for as many purposes. Thus, a key issue for a national ocean observing system is integration of disparate observational systems and data sets to maximize their utility for many users and purposes. Studies to date indicate that ocean observing elements have a return on investment that is substantial, which can be further increased by more cost-efficient integration of data sets and shared use of observational platforms.

Three dominant actions leading to the desired observing system are:

1. sustain existing (and new) ocean observations;

2. integrate existing (and new) ocean observations; and

3. adapt the system to meet evolving needs, including recommendations for development of new technologies to make sustained ocean observations more complete, more effective, and more affordable.

Four critical issues, underlying these three actions, are:

1. funding of ocean observing and data management activities;

2. organization and management of the activities;

3. integrated data management; and

4. exploiting the complementary interests and expertise of the academic, industrial/private, and governmental sectors through appropriate partnerships.

This report addresses seven major societal needs (not prioritized), thus setting the high-level objectives for an integrated, sustained, national ocean observing system:

1. Detecting and forecasting oceanic components of climate variability.

2. Facilitating safe and efficient marine operations.

3. Ensuring national security.

4. Managing living resources for sustainable use.

5. Preserving healthy and restoring degraded marine ecosystems.

6. Mitigating natural hazards.

7. Ensuring public health.

Two cross-cutting objectives are: use of ocean data for education and public awareness, and use of ocean data to support scientific research. The degree to which the seven objectives listed above can be achieved is determined by the level of understanding of the natural and anthropogenic phenomena that control the ocean system. In some areas this understanding is well advanced allowing effective use of ocean observations for immediate societal benefit today. In other areas, our understanding is limited and research is required to understand the processes that control changes in the ocean and in the climate. This research requires long-time-series data sets to validate models and provide new insights into the causes of the oceans variability. Thus, ocean observations are justified both by their immediate practical utility and also by their role in facilitating new understanding through research, which is the essential foundation upon which more complete achievement of the seven objectives is built.

Elements of a national ocean observing system already exist. However, the paramount issues of continuity, integration, and evolutionary improvement must be addressed. The recommendations address actions that will enable immediate improvements to the existing observations and associated data management, ensure continuity of critical observations, lead to integration for maximal shared use of platforms and data, and foster coordinated planning and implementation.

All of the included recommendations have been through a vetting process in the scientific and ocean-data-user communities, as documented in reports from the National Academy of Sciences, the planning components of the Global Ocean Observing System, and other broad-based consensus processes. It is recognized that the overall observing enterprise must engage the scientific, business, public, and government communities from initial conception through to societal benefits. Priorities must be set among interested and committed partners to decide what elements comprise the system and what elements are required to augment the system. There is a natural, generic sequence of activities:

1. Development of an observational/analysis technique within the research and/or operational communities.

2. Community acceptance of the methodology gained through pilot projects demonstrating the utility of the methods and data.

3. Pre-operational use of the methods and data by researchers, application groups, and other end users, with particular emphasis on ensuring compatibility with legacy systems.

4. Incorporation of the methods and data into an operational framework for sustained use in support of societal objectives.

The observing system behind the skillful forecasting of El Niño events has gone through a process like this, for example. [It has been learned that step (3) and the movement from (3) to (4) are difficult.]

The recommendations presented are in four categories:

1. Infrastructure for integrated data and information management,

2. Open ocean observations,

3. Coastal ocean observations, and

4. Implementation.

It is likely that the greatest benefits from an integrated ocean observing system will be realized through the development of an effective data and information management methodology.

Infrastructure Recommendations

These Infrastructure recommendations are based on the experiences of the research and operational communities in the development of effective approaches for the acquisition, dissemination, and utilization of oceanographic information.

1. Initiate quantitative studies to design networks and on-line data storage/archival systems that mix satellite and in situ arrays in a cost-effective manner.

2. Implement a data management system that is complementary to existing systems and attuned to the multiple sources of data and their multiple uses.

3. Implement a national pilot effort to share data from multiple coastal data systems. An example of such a pilot is LABNET of the National Association of Marine Laboratories. This pilot should be a test bed for a larger national system which would include all coastal data.

4. Implement a national virtual ocean data system as intended by NOPP.

5. Agree to a strategy and implement a GIS-like product interface to enable users of the national ocean observing system to have ready access to multiple data sets for multiple purposes.

6. Design and implement a regional test-bed ocean data system that embodies the concepts of recommendations 2-5 above (pilot project); the Gulf of Mexico is an example of such a region.

7. Carry out the Global Ocean Data Assimilation Experiment, a multi-year, global pilot project to assimilate in situ and satellite physical data with the following purposes, among others:

• To demonstrate feasibility of a global observing system,

• To develop optimal observing strategies, and

• To provide data for initialization of climate models, boundary conditions for coastal zone models, and improved ocean descriptions for operational forecasting by the Navy and National Weather Service.

The assimilation of data and the continued improvement of numerical models for transforming measurements into useful products are particularly important.

Open Ocean Recommendations

The immediate benefits of an increased effort in open ocean observations accrue to the objectives involving climate variability, national security, and living marine resources; the immediate benefits of an increased effort in coastal ocean observations accrue to the objectives involving marine operations, healthy ecosystems, natural hazards, and public health. The recommendations are not mapped directly into each of these seven societal objectives because of the overriding issue of integration: each data set is potentially useful for more than one objective. A primary goal of this integrated, sustained, national ocean observing system is to realize this potential.

The following Open Ocean recommendations are based on the comprehensive analysis of the Ocean Observation System Development Panel, thoroughly endorsed by the relevant science and user communities, and on Federal agency requirements. High priority is placed on the development of technologies that provide the means for needed measurements in both open and coastal ocean waters and that disseminate data in a timely manner.

Enhancements for Observations of Surface Fields and Fluxes:

1. Improved Sea Surface Temperature information through:

• More efficient mix of Volunteer Observing Ships (including commercial fishing vessels carrying observers or vessel monitoring systems), drifting surface buoys, and remote sensing,

• Improved sensors on Volunteer Observing Ships, and

• Quality marine meteorological measurements at selected fixed locations.

Uses: numerical weather and long-range prediction and improvements, seasonal-to-interannual predictions, location of fronts by sport and commercial fishermen, naval operations, improved knowledge of mesoscale circulation for offshore operations, and research.

2. Improved surface wind information through:

• Sustained satellite surface vector wind observations, and

• Improved in situ sensors on observing ships and sensors, including quality marine meteorological observations at selected fixed reference sites.

Uses: improving safety and efficiency of naval and commercial observations, wave forecasts, forecasts of shipboard icing, seasonal-to-interannual predictions, and research.

3. Improved surface ecosystem information through:

• Sustained ocean-color satellites (now in quasi-operational testing phase), and

• Improved in situ observations.

Uses: Estimating global productivity and variability, estimation of carbon fixation, implications for fisheries, improved knowledge of mesoscale circulation by non-renewable energy producers, and research.

4. Improved sea level height information through blend of:

• Sustained precision sea surface height measurements from satellites, and

• Sustained and new in situ calibration/validation observations [observing ships, Tropical Atmosphere-Ocean Array, Array for Real-time Geostrophic Oceanography (ARGO)].

Uses: Estimation of heat transport and storage for monitoring long-term climate variability, monitoring mesoscale circulation for offshore operations, improved surface circulation climatologies for efficient marine transportation, improved wave heights benefit marine and naval operations, and research.

5. Implement more volunteer ships with carbon dioxide observations (pilot project).

Uses: Reduce uncertainties in air-sea carbon flux needed for climate change monitoring/ evaluation and research.

Enhancements for Upper Ocean Observations:

1. Sustain operational ENSO observing system in the Pacific and maintain support for, as a pilot project, the Pilot Research Array in the Tropical Atlantic (PIRATA).

Uses: Improve forecasts of seasonal-to-interannual prediction, enhance naval operational nowcasts and forecasts, and research.

2. Continue profiling float deployments through an Array for Real-time Geostrophic Oceanography (ARGO) as a pilot project.

Uses: Enhance naval operational nowcasts and forecasts, improve capability to predict seasonal to decadal climate variability, and research.

Enhancement for Interior Ocean Observations:

1. Obtain global inventories of ocean inventories of temperature, salinity, and carbon through

• Decadal global surveys.

Uses: Assess long term climate change (IPCC) and research.

2. Establish/sustain long time series stations to sample the ocean over the full water column at selected locations.

Uses: To describe transports and changes in selected physical and biogeochemical properties of the ocean (e.g., heat, fresh water, and carbon) on long time scales and to attribute these changes to natural and/or anthropogenic causes.

3. Monitor long-term changes in sea level through blend of

• Sustained precision altimetry from satellites, and

• Array of some 30 geocentrically-located, high quality tide gauges.

Uses: reduce uncertainty in global and regional sea level change and research.

Coastal Ocean Recommendations

The purpose of the coastal component of the observing system is to (1) quantify inputs of energy and materials from land, air, ocean, and human activities and to (2) detect and predict the effects of these inputs on human populations living in the coastal zone, on coastal ecosystems and living marine resources, and on coastal marine operations. These coastal ocean recommendations and how they might be achieved have been reviewed and documented in numerous national workshops and reports.

1. Obtain more accurate estimates of inputs of freshwater, sediments, nutrients, and contaminants to coastal waters on local to regional and national scales through

• long-term, continuous measurements of flow volume at more sites; and

• more frequent sampling of key properties, including especially sediment load, nutrient concentration, and selected chemical contaminants.

2. Improve marine meteorological forecasts and coastal circulation models; more timely detection of environmental trends; document the effects of human activities on coastal ecosystems; improve scientific information in support of fisheries management; and assess the efficacy of management actions through

• the development of an integrated in situ and remote sensing observing system for monitoring and predicting change in selected species of living resources and the quantity and quality of coastal habitats (intertidal, seagrasses, kelp beds, water column, and sediments); and

• the development of an expanded and enhanced network of moored instruments in inland seas (estuaries, bays, sounds, the Great Lakes) and in the open waters of the EEZ for sustained, synoptic measurements of meteorological (including atmospheric deposition) and oceanographic (physical, chemical, and biological) properties deposition at more locations.

3. Develop a network of coastal index sites (pilot projects).

Uses: Quantify the causes and consequences of environmental variability in coastal waters and improve predictions of environmental change and human impact in key locations.

4. Implement a comprehensive and integrated program of in situ and remote measurements of water levels, surface waves and currents and timely dissemination of nowcasts and forecasts in all major ports and other coastal waters used for marine operations.

Uses: Improve the safety and efficiency of marine operations.

5. Document changes in water depth (nearshore shallow water and the deeper waters of the EEZ) and shoreline topography through

• frequent high resolution topographic shoreline and nearshore bathymetric surveys, and

• less frequent systematic, high resolution bathymetric surveys of the continental shelf.

6. Integrate distinct sea level observing systems (from measurements to data management) conducted in coastal waters.

7. Establish a coastal data and information management system that leverages existing National Data Center capabilities and which can accommodate the anticipated high volume of coastal ocean data observations.

Implementation Recommendations

These Implementation recommendations are based on lessons learned in the development and deployment of ocean instrumentation and the expertise resident in the various academic, government, and private sector communities.

1. Mechanisms must be set in place to ensure that needed observing elements that have been developed through the pilot stage can be transitioned without loss of measurement continuity through pre-operational to operational phases.

2. Long-term financial support is required to sustain long-term observations.

3. Appropriate guidance and oversight must be set in place to assure recommendations 1 and 2.

4. The observing system must include ongoing strategic planning to set evolving requirements for the system based on evolving user needs, evaluate research and technical developments for potential improvements, recommend needed technical developments, and examine strategic sampling tradeoffs. The system must adequately address the integrated data archival and management needs of users, both operational and research.

5. A continuing review process with annual reports to Congress is recommended.

6. Resources (human and financial) must be available for rapid tactical evaluation of the observing system. The emphasis must be on ensuring that quality-controlled data and products are flowing at the requisite rates.

7. An effective, integrated observing system requires a partnership between the federal agencies with responsibility for the ocean, academic institutions with technical and scientific expertise, and the private sector with socioeconomic requirements, environmental concerns, and resources. The National Ocean Partnership Program (NOPP) is an example of a partnership formed for similar motivations.