Delivering Sustained, Coordinated, and Integrated Observations of the Southern Ocean for Global Impact

Abstract

Newman et al. The Southern Ocean Observing System time series of key variables, and delivers the greatest impact from data to all key end-users. Although the Southern Ocean remains one of the least-observed ocean regions, enhanced international coordination and advances in autonomous platforms have resulted in progress toward sustained observations of this region. Since 2009, the Southern Ocean community has deployed over 5700 observational platforms south of 40 • S. Large-scale, multi-year or sustained, multidisciplinary efforts have been supported and are now delivering observations of essential variables at space and time scales that enable assessment of changes being observed in Southern Ocean systems. The improved observational coverage, however, is predominantly for the open ocean, encompasses the summer, consists of primarily physical oceanographic variables, and covers surface to 2000 m. Significant gaps remain in observations of the ice-impacted ocean, the sea ice, depths >2000 m, the air-ocean-ice interface, biogeochemical and biological variables, and for seasons other than summer. Addressing these data gaps in a sustained way requires parallel advances in coordination networks, cyberinfrastructure and data management tools, observational platform and sensor technology, twoway platform interrogation and data-transmission technologies, modeling frameworks, intercalibration experiments, and development of internationally agreed sampling standards and requirements of key variables. This paper presents a community statement on the major scientific and observational progress of the last decade, and importantly, an assessment of key priorities for the coming decade, toward achieving the SOOS vision and delivering essential data to all end-users.

Scientific Challenges and Present Capabilities in Underwater Robotic Vehicle Design and Navigation for Oceanographic Exploration Under-Ice

“…Under-ice vehicles offer an attractive means to observe ice-ocean interactions in these challenging environments where capturing processes that vary dramatically across small to medium spatial scales are needed, or where traditional methods are exceedingly difficult to perform (see, e.g., in [63,65]). As capabilities advance, particularly for long-term or long-range presence, autonomous under-ice vehicles will play an increasing role in sustained observations of the ice and ocean in both the Arctic and Antarctic [66,67].…”

Constraining Southern Ocean Air-Sea-Ice Fluxes Through Enhanced Observations

“…To date, ASV deployments have been shortterm project-based missions. A sustained and coordinated effort to deploy multiple ASVs (and Lagrangian platforms -SWIFT/drifting buoys) in the SO, potentially centered around key mooring sites, will require international resources and effort (see Newman et al, 2019). This type of system will address the data gaps between sparse vessel-based observations and achieve year-round presence in harsh/remote regions.…”

“…This justifies targeted process studies aimed at measuring flux differences over the scale of the first baroclinic Rossby radius (50 km or less) and over strong oceanic (temperature) gradients. Further detail can also be found in Newman et al (2019).…”

Ocean Climate Observing Requirements in Support of Climate Research and Climate Information

“…Seasonal biases in the observational record (Figure 3) pose significant challenges to constraining mean annual variability and trends (Fay et al, 2018). Significant gaps remain in observations of the ice-impacted oceans for nonsummer seasons (Newman et al, 2019).…”