On the Future of Argo: A Global, Full-Depth, Multi-Disciplinary Array

Dean Roemmich , Matthew Alford , Hervé Claustre (1) , Kenneth Johnson , Brian King , James Moum , Peter R. Oke (2) , W. Brechner Owens , Sylvie Pouliquen (3) , Sarah Purkey (4) , Megan Scanderbeg , Toshio Suga , Susan Wijffels (5) , Nathalie Zilberman , Dorothée Bakker (6) , Molly Baringer , Mathieu Belbeoch , Henry Bittig (1) , Emmanuel Boss (7) , Paulo Calil , Fiona Carse , Thierry Carval (8) , Fei Chai , Diarmuid Ó. Conchubhair , Fabrizio d'Ortenzio (1) , Giorgio Dall’olmo (9) , Damien Desbruyères (10) , Katja Fennel (11) , Ilker Fer (12) , Raffaele Ferrari , Gael Forget (13) , Howard Freeland , Tetsuichi Fujiki , Marion Gehlen (14, 15) , Blair Greenan , Robert Hallberg , Toshiyuki Hibiya , Shigeki Hosoda , Steven Jayne , Markus Jochum , Gregory Johnson (16) , Kiryong Kang , Nicolas N. Kolodziejczyk (17) , Arne Körtzinger (18) , Pierre-Yves Le Traon , Yueng-Djern Lenn , Guillaume Maze (10) , Kjell Arne Mork , Tamaryn Morris , Takeyoshi Nagai , Jonathan Nash , Alberto Naveira Garabato , Are Olsen (12) , Rama Rao Pattabhi , Satya Prakash (19) , Stephen Riser , Catherine Schmechtig (20, 21) , Claudia Schmid , Emily Shroyer , Andreas Sterl (22) , Philip Sutton , Lynne Talley , Toste Tanhua (23) , Virginie Thierry , Sandy Thomalla (24) , John Toole , Ariel Troisi , Thomas Trull (25) , Jon Turton , Pedro Joaquin Velez-Belchi , Waldemar Walczowski , Haili Wang , Rik Wanninkhof (26) , Amy F Waterhouse (27) , Stephanie Waterman , Andrew K Watson (28) , Cara Wilson , Annie Wong , Jianping Xu (29) , Ichiro Yasuda

1 LOV - Laboratoire d'océanographie de Villefranche
2 Oceans and Atmosphere Flagship [Brisbane]
3 IFREMER - Institut Français de Recherche pour l'Exploitation de la Mer
4 UC - University of California
5 CSIRO - CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research
6 UEA - University of East Anglia [Norwich]
7 School of Marine Sciences
8 GM - Unité Géosciences Marines
9 OSU - Oregon State University
10 LPO - Laboratoire de physique des océans
11 DO - Department of Oceanography [Halifax]
12 BCCR - Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research
13 MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology
14 LSCE - Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement [Gif-sur-Yvette]
15 MERMAID - Modelling the Earth Response to Multiple Anthropogenic Interactions and Dynamics
16 Cancer Genetics Branch
17 LOPS - Laboratoire d'Océanographie Physique et Spatiale
18 GEOMAR - Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research [Kiel]
19 Biomedical Technology and Cell Therapy Research Laboratory, Montreal
20 UPMC - Université Pierre et Marie Curie - Paris 6
21 OSU ECCE TERRA - Observatoire des sciences de l'univers Ecce Terra [Paris]
22 KNMI - Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute
23 IFM-GEOMAR - Leibniz-Institut für Meereswissenschaften
24 SOCCO - Southern Ocean Carbon and Climate Observatory
25 ACE-CRC - Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre
26 AOML - NOAA Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory
27 SIO - UC San Diego - Scripps Institution of Oceanography
28 Evolution Paris-Seine
29 McMaster University [Hamilton, Ontario]

The Argo Program has been implemented and sustained for almost two decades, as a global array of about 4000 profiling floats. Argo provides continuous observations of ocean temperature and salinity versus pressure, from the sea surface to 2000 dbar. The successful installation of the Argo array and its innovative data management system arose opportunistically from the combination of great scientific need and technological innovation. Through the data system, Argo provides fundamental physical observations with broad societally-valuable applications, built on the cost-efficient and robust technologies of autonomous profiling floats. Following recent advances in platform and sensor technologies, even greater opportunity exists now than 20 years ago to (i) improve Argo’s global coverage and value beyond the original design, (ii) extend Argo to span the full ocean depth, (iii) add biogeochemical sensors for improved understanding of oceanic cycles of carbon, nutrients, and ecosystems, and (iv) consider experimental sensors that might be included in the future, for example to document the spatial and temporal patterns of ocean mixing. For Core Argo and each of these enhancements, the past, present, and future progression along a path from experimental deployments to regional pilot arrays to global implementation is described. The objective is to create a fully global, top-to-bottom, dynamically complete, and multidisciplinary Argo Program that will integrate seamlessly with satellite and with other in situ elements of the Global Ocean Observing System (Legler et al., 2015). The integrated system will deliver operational reanalysis and forecasting capability, and assessment of the state and variability of the climate system with respect to physical, biogeochemical, and ecosystems parameters. It will enable basic research of unprecedented breadth and magnitude, and a wealth of ocean-education and outreach opportunities.

Mots clés: Argo; floats; global; ocean; warming; circulation; temperature; salinity

Domaines: Océan, Atmosphère

Dean Roemmich, Matthew Alford, Hervé Claustre, Kenneth Johnson, Brian King, et al.. On the Future of Argo: A Global, Full-Depth, Multi-Disciplinary Array. Frontiers in Marine Science, 2019, 6, ⟨10.3389/fmars.2019.00439⟩. ⟨hal-02376035⟩