## Program Plan

**For**

## Building a Sustained Ocean Observing System for Climate

Office of Climate Observation

Updated: April 2005

[Overall Summary]{.underline}

The Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) has identified the critical
need for the federal government to begin delivering regular reports
documenting the present state of the climate system components. Yet an
observing system does not presently exist that is capable of accurately
documenting climate variability and change in the Earth's oceans,
atmosphere, cryosphere, and land surface. Through this program plan NOAA
will develop the infrastructure necessary to build, with national and
international partners, the ocean component of a global climate
observing system and to deliver regular reports on the ocean's
contribution to the state of the climate and on the adequacy of the
observing system.

[1.0 Base Program]{.underline}

**1.1 Key activities currently carried out by NOAA for this strategy
area:** Over the past decade NOAA has worked with national and
international partners to begin building a sustained global ocean system
for climate, focusing first on the tropical Pacific, and expanding to
the Atlantic and the Indian Oceans. It is now well understood that
documenting and forecasting climate will require continuous measurements
from space along with the instrumenting of the entire global ocean. The
present international effort is about 51% of what will ultimately be
needed for the global system. NOAA presently maintains approximately 60%
of the *in situ* networks and 30% of the space components and is
committed to the goal of providing at least 50% of the composite system
over the long term.

The existing foundation is comprised of twelve complementary *in situ*,
space based, data and assimilation subsystems: 1) Global Tide Gauge
Network; 2) Global Surface Drifting Buoy Array; 3) Global Ships of
Opportunity Network; 4) Tropical Moored Buoy Network; 5) Argo Profiling
Float Array; 6) Ocean Reference Stations; 7) Coastal Moorings; 8) Ocean
Carbon Monitoring Network; 9) Arctic observing System; 10) Dedicated
Ship Operations; 11) Satellites for Sea Surface Temperature, Sea Surface
Height, Surface Vector Winds, Sea Ice, and Ocean Color; 12) Data and
Assimilation Systems and their products. The system design is
illustrated in Figure 1. This is an international effort. NOAA's plan
includes an additional element -- System Management and Product Delivery
-- to focus program resources on answering the nation's highest priority
policy- and economically-relevant questions.

The plan is being advanced via matrix management within the NOAA Climate
Goal. Implementation of the in situ networks is through distributed
centers of expertise at the NOAA Research laboratories, the National
Ocean Service Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and
Services, the National Data Buoy Center, and the university laboratories
that have developed the instruments and techniques. The space components
are centered in the NOAA Satellite and Information Service; the space
components are being advanced via other NOAA program planning; they are
noted here because of their central role in global observation but they
are not detailed in this plan. The focal point for developing global
ocean data assimilation capabilities will be the Geophysical Fluid
Dynamics Laboratory in partnership with the National Centers for
Environmental Prediction and university-based applied research centers.
The system management functions are focused in the Office of Global
Programs.

**1.2 Matrix document showing key activities and current status:**
Illustrated in Figure 2 and detailed below in Section 6.

**1.3 Current out-year performance measures based on current funding
levels:** The performance measures are given in Section 5. At current
funding levels the out-year accomplishments will be frozen at the
deliverables indicated for FY05.

**1.4 Current budget for each of the major activities (FY 2005); based
on the total ocean program baseline assessment.**

Tide Gauge Network \$1.8 M

Drifting Buoy Array \$4.0 M

Tropical Moored Buoy Network \$4.8 M

Ships-of-Opportunity Network \$4.6 M

Argo Array of Profiling Floats \$10.4 M

Ocean Reference Stations \$3.7 M

Ocean Carbon Monitoring \$4.0 M

Integrated Arctic Observing System \$1.4 M

Dedicated Ship Time \$1.1 M

Data and Assimilation Subsystems \$3.9 M

Management and Product Delivery [\$4.5 M]{.underline}

\$50.4 M

**[2.0 Statement of Need]{.underline}**

The *Second Report on the Adequacy of the Global Observing System for
Climate in Support of the UNFCCC* concludes "there has been progress and
improvement in the implementation of global climate observing systems
since the first report, especially in the use of satellite information
and in the provision of some ocean observations. At the same time, the
Report notes that the global terrestrial networks remain to be fully
implemented; the ocean networks lack global coverage and commitment to
sustained operations; and the atmospheric networks are not operating
with the required global coverage and quality. The Report concludes, in
agreement with the IPCC, that there remain serious deficiencies in the
ability of the current global observing systems for climate to meet the
observational needs of the UNFCCC. ...Without urgent action to address
these findings, the Parties will lack the information necessary to
effectively plan for and manage their response to climate change."

The Report goes on to note "new technology developed and proven by the
ocean climate programs of the 1990s has allowed the ocean community to
design and commence implementation of an initial ocean climate observing
system that is well focused on the UNFCCC needs. The first priority is
the full implementation of this system together with its associated
data, analysis and product capabilities."

In response to the Adequacy Report, the international community has now
published the GCOS Implementation Plan for the Global Observing System
for Climate in support of the UNFCCC (GCOS-92), October 2004. This
implementation plan details the actions needed to achieve global
coverage by the ocean networks. The system put in place for climate will
also support global weather prediction, global and coastal ocean
prediction, marine hazard warning, marine environmental monitoring, and
many other non-climate users.

This program plan is founded on the international design noted in
GCOS-92; it is illustrated in Figure 1. Other requirement drivers
include the CCSP Strategic Plan expressing need for "complete global
coverage of the oceans with moored, drifting, and ship-based networks,"
and the OCEAN.US *Implementation of the Initial U.S. IOOS* specifying
"the highest priority for the global component of the IOOS is sustained,
global coverage." NOAA's contribution to global implementation is
represented in the current program budget and the progress to date is
illustrated in Figure 2. Implementation of this program plan will
demonstrate to the world community that the United States is intent on
taking immediate action to address the Report findings, is willing to
play a leadership role in achieving global coverage of the ocean
networks, and is committed to sustained operations.

**2.1 Program Office requirements to be met:** The NOAA Office of Global
Programs is organized around four strategic objectives: 1) Development
of an Earth System Model for climate change projections at GFDL; 2)
Improvement of NWS operational seasonal to international climate
forecasts; 3) Development of the in situ ocean component of the global
climate observing system; and 4) Development of decision support tools.
This plan describes the program for meeting the third objective.

**2.2 Input from NOAA leadership related to this strategy:** This
program plan addresses NOAA's Strategic Plan, Climate Strategies, and
the Annual Guidance Memorandum. In particular:

-   Strategic Plan: Describe and understand the state of the climate
    system through integrated observations, analysis, and data
    stewardship.

-   Climate Strategies: Improve the quality and quantity of climate
    observations, analysis, interpretation, and archiving by maintaining
    a consistent climate record and by improving our ability to
    determine why changes are taking place.

-   Annual Guidance Memorandum: The Integrated Ocean Observing System
    (IOOS) must be developed as a major component of the U.S.
    contribution to the Global Earth Observation System of Systems
    (GEOSS).

**2.3 External constituent input related to the strategy area:** In 2001
the U.S. GOOS Steering Committee conducted a formal review of the 2001
version of this program plan. The review panel included international
representatives of the IOC, IGOS, CLIVAR, WOCE, OOPC, GODAE, and JCOMM
as well as partner agencies within the United States -- NASA and
NAVOCEANO. The seven summary recommendations of the review are
paraphrased below.

1.  Strong overall support for the plan. U.S. GOOS urged NOAA to
    implement the plan with the following additional recommendations:

2.  The need for a management plan -- An effort of the proposed
    magnitude must be integrated, organized, and managed as a system in
    order to be effective. The management plan should define an orderly
    decision making process with management accountability that is
    understood by other agencies and by customers. A single NOAA point
    of responsibility and authority is very desirable. Sections 7.0--7.7
    achieve this recommendation.

3.  The need for a data and information management budget. Section 6.11
    achieves this recommendation.

4.  The need for improved ocean products -- evaluation and delivery.
    Section 7.6 achieves this recommendation.

5.  The need for transition to operations of precision altimetry.
    Section 6.10 achieves this recommendation.

6.  The need for ocean carbon monitoring to be better defined. Section
    6.8 achieves this recommendation.

7.  The need to deal with dedicated ship time issues. Section 6.9 has
    been revised to achieve this recommendation.

**2.4 Relevant Congressional input or guidance related to the strategy
area:** The FY03 Senate Committee on Appropriations Report "reaffirms
its support for the establishment of an integrated, interagency ocean
and coastal observing system ... and requests the submission of a plan
to implement such a system." The National Oceanographic Partnership
Program's Ocean.US office is responding to this Congressional request on
behalf of the contributing agencies. The climate system detailed below
forms the nucleus of the global component of the U.S. Integrated Ocean
Observing System.

**2.5 Known impediments (legal, fiscal, policy) towards achieving
performance targets and objectives:** None.

### [3.0 Program Initiative]{.underline}

**3.1 Overall strategy for addressing deficiencies outlined in the
Statement of Need Section.** The strategic approach underlying this
program plan is as follows:

-   Build the long-term ocean component of the observing system in the
    context of a comprehensive, multi-year, climate services initiative.
    Improved marine and coastal forecast services will be immediate
    byproducts.

-   Set a 2000-2010 timeline for phased implementation.

-   Establish accountability by defining specific objectives and
    performance measures.

-   Define an "initial observing system design" that will accomplish the
    objectives and performance measures. Identify annual milestones to
    complete the initial system over the ten-year time line. Emphasize
    that the initial design is our best guess at this time -- it must be
    evolutionary as knowledge and technology advance.

-   State the obvious -- a global observing system cannot be built with
    existing budgets. Estimate the annual funding needed to achieve the
    identified milestones. Estimate that NOAA will implement about 50%
    of the global system.

-   Work with national and international partners to achieve 100%.

Although NOAA's marine and coastal services and the mission services of
the other agencies and nations will benefit from this plan, and are
considered throughout, accomplishing NOAA's climate mission is the
fundamental driver. The scientific foundations come from the Climate
Variability and Predictability Program (CLIVAR), the Carbon Cycle
Science Program, and the Global Water Cycle Program. It is not the
intent of the plan to provide all of the observations needed by these
programs but to provide a baseline observing system, to be sustained
over the long term, that can be built upon where needed to answer
specific questions. This baseline system looks for efficiencies to be
gained by utilizing common platforms/sites/data infrastructure for
several objectives in parallel, and seeks to foster a system approach to
effective international organization of complementary in situ,
satellite, data, and modeling components of climate observation.

Priorities for implementation are now in place based on the concept of
extending the building blocks that have already been put in place, and
on the international plan drafted by over 300 scientists from 26 nations
that met in Saint Raphael, France, October 1999, at the OCEANOBS 99
Conference for design of *The Ocean Observing System for Climate*. This
plan has now been codified in GCOS-92. NOAA will work to implement the
specific actions called for in GCOS-92, particularly those actions
assigned to the Joint WMO/IOC Technical Commission for Oceanography and
Marine Meteorology (JCOMM). JCOMM is NOAA's principal intergovernmental
linkage to international implementation.

**3.1.1 NOAA context*: ***This plan supports NOAA's strategic goal to
monitor and observe: "NOAA will invest in needed climate quality
observations and encourage other national and international investments
to provide a comprehensive observing system in support of climate
assessments and forecasts." The plan details how NOAA will achieve one
element of that strategic goal -- implementation of the sustained in
situ ocean component of the climate observing system.

**3.1.2 Interagency context:** The observational objectives of NOAA's
climate program and those of the CCSP are essentially identical and the
ocean observing system architecture detailed below will be implemented
by NOAA within the framework of, and as an element of, the CCSP. At the
same time the observing system must be advanced in support of climate
services, it must also be advanced in response to a national demand for
the ocean agencies to coordinate implementation of an U.S. contribution
to the global ocean observing system. It is recognized that an effective
global ocean observing system can be achieved only through continuing
interaction among all national (and international) partners. In this
context, NOAA will provide a significant contribution to the global
component of the Integrated Ocean Observing System. Implementation will
be coordinated with the National Oceanographic Partnership Program
agencies.

**3.1.3 International context:** The observational component of climate
services has by far the greatest opportunity and necessity for
international collaboration. A global observing system by definition
crosses international boundaries and the potential exists for both
benefits and responsibilities to be shared by many nations. The system
described below is based on the international design of, and is an U.S.
contribution to GCOS-92. The observing system projects that make up the
climate component have been developed, and will continued to be evolved,
organized and managed, in cooperation with the international
implementation panels of the Joint IOC/WMO Technical Commission for
Oceanography and Marine Meteorology (JCOMM), and with scientific
guidance from the GCOS/GOOS/WCRP Ocean Observations Panel for Climate
(OOPC).

**3.2 Proposed out-year performance targets:** See Sections 5.0-5.4.

**3.3 Discussion of individual investments necessary to address
shortfalls:** Given in Sections 6.0-7.7.

**3.4 Cost and schedule for each investment:** Based on the Program
Baseline assessment of the 100% requirement. Details given in Table 2.
Summary:

> [FY03]{.underline} [FY04]{.underline} [FY05]{.underline}
> [FY06]{.underline} [FY07]{.underline} [FY08]{.underline}
> [FY09]{.underline} [FY10]{.underline}

System annual

operating cost (\$ M) 35.2 40.7 50.4 53.6 76.0 101.3 120.8 141.5

### 

### 4.0 Program Goal and Objectives

**4.1 Goal**

The goal of this plan is to build and sustain the ocean component of a
global climate observing system that will respond to the long-term
observational requirements of the operational forecast centers,
international research programs, and major scientific assessments.

### 

### 4.2 Objectives

The ocean is the memory of the climate system and is second only to the
sun in effecting variability in the seasons and long-term climate
change. It is estimated that the ocean stores 1000 times more heat than
the atmosphere, and 50 times more carbon. Eighty-five percent of the
precipitation that waters our Earth comes directly from the ocean.
Changing sea level is one of the most immediate impacts of climate
change. Additionally, the key to possible abrupt climate change may lie
in deep ocean circulation.

Accordingly, the objectives of the sustained ocean observing system for
climate are to:

> 1\) Document long-term trends in sea level change;
>
> 2\) Document ocean carbon sources and sinks;
>
> 3\) Document the ocean's storage and global transport of heat and
> fresh water; and
>
> 4\) Document the ocean-atmosphere exchange of heat and fresh water.

This implementation plan will provide a composite global ocean observing
system of complementary networks that includes: 1) deployment and
maintenance of observational platforms and sensors; 2) data delivery and
management; and 3) routine delivery of ocean analyses. This end-to-end
ocean system will provide the critical "up-front" information needed for
climate forecasting, research, and assessments -- continuous, long term,
climate quality, global data sets and a suite of routinely delivered
ocean analyses. At the same time, the system will provide real-time data
to serve the needs of NOAA's marine and coastal forecast and warning
missions and the needs of the other agencies in accomplishing their
missions.

**5.0 Performance Measures**

In order to achieve the four objectives, the system must accurately
measure: 1) sea level to identify changes resulting from climate
variability; 2) ocean carbon content every ten years and the air-sea
exchange seasonally; 3) sea surface temperature and surface circulation
to identify significant patterns of climate variability; 4) sea surface
pressure and air-sea exchanges of heat, momentum, and fresh water to
identify changes in forcing functions driving ocean conditions and
atmospheric conditions; 5) ocean heat and fresh water content and
transports to identify where anomalies enter the ocean, how they move
and are transformed, and where they re-emerge to interacting with the
atmosphere; 6) identify the essential aspects of thermohaline
circulation as well as the subsurface expressions of the patterns of
climate variability; and 7) sea ice thickness and concentrations.

The sampling requirements for these parameters have been documented by
international GOOS and GCOS. Table 1 lists the requirements as presented
at the OCEANOBS 99 Conference in Saint-Raphael, France. It represents
the best estimates of the international community at this time.

The Proceedings of OCEANOBS 99 and the final report from the conference,
*Observing the Ocean in the 21^st^ Century*, outline implementation
strategies for achieving these sampling requirements. Additionally, for
documenting sea level variability and change, the implementation
strategy is further defined in the *International Sea Level Workshop
Report*, 1998; and for documenting ocean carbon sources and sinks the
implementation strategy is defined in the *Large Scale CO~2~ Observing
Plan: In Situ Oceans and Atmosphere (LSCOP)*, 2002. The latter plan is
for the United States only at this time, but was developed by U.S.
scientists working in collaboration with international partners. The
international community met in Paris, January 2003, to advance
international implementation of the ocean carbon monitoring system and
the results have now been published in the International Ocean Carbon
Coordination Project. The elements of the plans needed to achieve global
coverage with an initial ocean observing system have now been summarized
in GCOS-92. These foundation documents are available from the NOAA
Office of Global Programs and are listed in Appendix A.

Based on the requirements in Table 1 and the implementation strategies
defined in the foundation documents listed in Appendix A, the system's
effectiveness in meeting the objectives will be gauged by the
performance measure listed below. Detailed metrics are given for each
objective in sections 5.1-5.4. Those detailed metrics will lead to a
system that can be summarized in four overarching measures of success:

Performance Measure 1: Reduce the error in global measurement of sea
surface temperature.

> Metric: Potential satellite bias error (degrees Celsius):
>
> 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
>
> 0.7 C 0.7 C 0.6 C 0.5 C 0.4 C 0.3 C 0.2 C 0.2 C 0.2 C

Performance Measure 2: Reduce the error in global measurement of sea
level variability and change.

Metric: To be determined

Performance Measure 3: Reduce the error in global measurement of ocean
carbon sources and sinks.

Metric: To be determined

Performance Measure 4: Reduce the error in global measurement of the
ocean's storage and transport of heat and fresh water.

Metric: To be determined

**5.1 Document long-term trends in sea level change.**

Performance Measure 5: Complete the installation of real-time, remote
reporting tide gauges and co-located permanent GPS receivers at the
international GLOSS subset of 62 stations for Long Term Trends and
subset of 30 stations for altimeter drift calibration.

Performance Measure 6: Establish the permanent infrastructure necessary
to process and analyze the tide gauge and GPS data and deliver routine
annual sea level change reports.

Metrics:

-   For 170 climate reference stations worldwide, routinely deliver an
    annual report of the variations in relative annual mean sea level
    for the entire length of the instrumental record, and the monthly
    mean sea level trend for the past 100 years with 95% confidence
    interval.

-   Routinely deliver an annual report of global absolute sea level
    change to an accuracy of 1 mm per year.

**5.2 Document ocean carbon sources and sinks.**

Performance Measure 7: Complete the Northern Hemisphere ocean observing
system to assist in determining carbon dioxide sources and sinks over
the coterminous United States in partnership with the atmospheric
observing system.

Performance Measure 8: Complete the expansion of the global oceanic
observing system to inventory global scale oceanic uptake of excess
carbon dioxide in partnership with the atmospheric observing system.

Metrics:

-   Report interhemispheric gradients of CO~2~ constrained to 1 ppm on
    seasonal time scales.

-   Improve measurements of North Atlantic and North Pacific Ocean basin
    carbon dioxide fluxes to within ±0.2 Pg/C per year.

-   Reduce uncertainty on regional estimates of carbon sources and sinks
    on a global basis to ±50%.

-   Report the change in ocean carbon inventory over the last decade
    constrained to 2 Pg/C per year.

-   Provide publicly available, routine changes in inventory of carbon,
    heat, and salinity in the ocean basins on a decadal time frame to
    assess the effect of global change and feedbacks on the ocean

**5.3 Document the ocean's storage and global transport of heat and
fresh water.**

Performance Measure 9: For the global ocean, complete the ocean
observing system needed to measure the global variations in sea surface
temperature, surface and 2000 m circulation, total heat content of the
ocean, and the transport of heat across and between all ocean basins.

Performance Measure 10: Design, deploy, and implement instrument and
analysis systems to provide long term integrated measures of the global
thermohaline circulation and deliver yearly estimates of the state of
the thermohaline circulation - intensity, properties, freshwater
transport.

Metrics:

-   At ocean reference stations, deliver routine annual analyses of
    variability in average temperature at 0-1000 m depth to 0.1°C, and
    seasonal average temperature change to 0.1°C per three months.

-   Deliver analyses of the seasonal means of the surface and 2000 m
    ocean velocity fields on appropriate spatial resolutions that
    capture the major features of the overturning circulation for all
    the core climate variability regions (the global tropics, Pacific
    Decadal Oscillation, North Atlantic Oscillation, high latitude water
    mass formation regions both northern and southern hemispheres).

-   Deliver analyses of monthly mean sea surface temperature anomaly at
    500 km resolution to 0.2°C accuracy, average temperature at 0-1000 m
    depth to 0.5°C accuracy, and annual average temperature change to
    0.5°C per year.

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-   For the sinking regions of the north Atlantic and southern
    hemisphere, deliver yearly estimates of the annual average
    temperature and salinity of the intermediate, deep, and bottom
    waters to 0.03°C and 0.03PSU.

-   Across zonal sections in the Atlantic at 24°N, 47°N, and globally at
    35°S, deliver estimates of the average annual meridional heat
    transport from surface to bottom at 0.3PWatt accuracy.

**5.3 Document the ocean-atmosphere exchange of heat and fresh water.**

Performance Measure 11: For the global tropical ocean belt, complete the
upper ocean and surface meteorology observing system needed to measure
the ocean-atmosphere exchange of heat.

Performance Measure 1: For the global ocean, complete the oceanographic,
surface meteorology, and analysis system needed to measure variability
in the ocean-atmosphere exchange of fresh water, i.e., precipitation and
evaporation.

Metrics:

-   For the global ocean, deliver analyses of weekly mean sea surface
    temperature at 500 km resolution to 0.2°C accuracy

-   At ocean reference stations, deliver routine annual analyses of
    variability in ocean-atmosphere flux to 10 W/m^2^.

-   For the global ocean deliver weekly analysis of precipitation and
    evaporation at 500 km resolution to 5 cm per month accuracy.

##### 

##### 6.0 Milestones

In order to achieve the Performance Measures, the integrated ocean
observing system will be completed according to the following schedule.
The schedule is based on the initial design and projections of adequate
funding. The milestones will be updated annually to reflect evolution of
the design as knowledge and technology advance, and to reflect the
realities of funding availability.

> FY02 FY03 FY04 FY05 FY06 FY07 FY08 FY09 FY10

System % Complete: 40 45 48 53 55 66 77 88 100

Although individual network priorities are described below, they must
all go forward together as a system. For example, the global Argo array
of profiling floats is a primary tool for documenting ocean heat
content; yet deployment of the floats in the far corners of the ocean
cannot be achieved without the ships-of-opportunity and dedicated ship
time elements; and the Argo array cannot do its work without global
over-flight by continued precision altimeter space missions; while the
measurements taken by all networks will be rendered effective only
through the data and assimilation subsystems.

The following sections indicate network improvements that work toward
building the observing system as a whole. The ocean observing system is
a composite of complementary networks, each one contributing its unique
strengths; most serve multiple purposes. One of the primary goals of
NOAA's Office of Climate Observation is to look for efficiencies to be
gained by utilizing common platforms/sites/data infrastructure for
several objectives in parallel. For these reasons it is difficult to
assign the network components specifically to the climate service
product lines on a one-to-one basis. In general, however, the network
tasks described below will contribute to the deliverables as follows:

> 1\) Document long-term trends in sea level change:

-   Tide Gauge Network

-   Satellites

-   Data and Assimilation Subsystems

> 2\) Document ocean carbon sources and sinks:

-   Drifting Buoy Array

-   Tropical Moored Buoy Network

-   Ships of Opportunity

-   Argo Array

-   Ocean Reference Stations

-   Ocean Carbon Measurements

-   Coastal Moorings

-   Dedicated Ship Time

-   Data and Assimilation Subsystems

> 3\) Document the ocean's storage and global transport of heat and
> fresh water:

-   Tide Gauge Network

-   Drifting Buoy Array

-   Tropical Moored Buoy Network

-   Ships of Opportunity

-   Argo Array

-   Ocean Reference Stations

-   Coastal Moorings

-   Arctic Observing System

-   Dedicated Ship Time

-   Satellites

-   Data and Assimilation Subsystems

4\) Document the ocean-atmosphere exchange of heat and fresh water:

-   Drifting Buoy Array

-   Tropical Moored Buoy Network

-   Ships of Opportunity

-   Argo Array

-   Ocean Reference Stations

-   Coastal Moorings

-   Arctic Observing System

-   Dedicated Ship Time

-   Satellites

-   Data and Assimilation Subsystems

Priorities and milestones for the individual networks follow. For each
network the several priority tasks are listed in tabular form. The
bottom lines of the tables give the representative milestones that are
shown graphically in Figure 2; representative milestones are used to
simplify the graphic depiction of the phased implementation plan
illustrated by Figure 2. Relative emphases in completing the several
components of the observing system will depend on the relative
priorities assigned to the network tasks in the context of the overall
requirements of climate services.

**6.1 Tide Gauge Network**: Tide gauges are necessary for accurately
measuring long-term trends in sea level change and for calibration and
validation of the measurements from satellite altimeters, which are
assimilated into global climate models for predicting climate
variability. Many tide stations need to be upgraded with modern
technology. Permanent GPS receivers will be installed at a selected
subset of stations, leading to a geocentrically located subset expansion
from the present 43 GPS sites to 170 sites globally by 2010. These 170
climate reference stations will also be upgraded for real-time
reporting, not only for climate monitoring, but also to support marine
hazard warning (e.g., tsunami warning). In cooperation with
international partners NOAA will maintain a global climate network of
199 tide gauges stations, including the subset noted above, for
validation of satellite retrievals, validation of climate model results,
and documentation of seasonal to centennial variability in the El Nino
Southern Oscillation, Indian Ocean and Asian-Australian monsoons,
tropical Atlantic variability, North Atlantic Oscillation, North Pacific
variability, high latitude circulation, western boundary currents, and
circulation through narrow straits and chokepoints. This task will
contribute to climate services by providing the long term records needed
to 1) document sea level change: 2) document heat uptake, transport, and
release by the ocean (sea surface height contributes to the measurement
of ocean heat content); and 3) documents the ocean's overturning
circulation (gradients of sea surface height across straights and
choke-points are used to calculate large-scale ocean currents).

> International
>
> NOAA Contributions Goal

FY03 FY04 FY05 FY06 FY07 FY08 FY09 FY10

Operational stations 57 63 63 63 63 63 63 63 107

Research stations 6 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Station upgrades 0 4 10 16 26 32 32 32 199

GPS installation 5 10 14 43 45 52 62 86 86

Real-time reporting 67 69 79 91 106 126 148 170 170

GPS data processing X X X X X X X

Technology development X X X X X X

International GPS/DORIS 37 39 43 45 52 62 86 86 86

**6.2 Drifting Buoy Array:** Data sparse regions of the global ocean are
a major source of uncertainty in the seasonal forecasts and are also a
major uncertainty in the detection of long-term trends in global sea
surface temperature, which in turn is an indicator of global change.
Data gaps must be filled by surface drifting buoys to reduce these
sources of error to acceptable limits. NOAA, together with international
partners, will extend the global SST/velocity drifting buoy array to
data sparse regions, increasing from 1050 to 1250 buoys by 2005, while
adding wind, pressure, and precipitation measurement capabilities to
serve short term forecasting as well as climate research, seasonal
forecasting, and assessment of long term trends. This task will support
climate services by providing measurements needed to 1) document heat
uptake, transport, and release by the ocean; 2) document ocean carbon
sources and sinks (sea surface temperature affects the rate of transfer
of CO~2~ between the ocean and atmosphere; 3) document the air-sea
exchange of water and the ocean's overturning circulation, and 4)
document sea level change by providing the sea surface atmospheric
pressure measurements that are essential for calculating sea surface
height from satellite altimeter measurements.

> International

NOAA Contributions Goal

#  FY03 FY04 FY05 FY06 FY07 FY08 FY09 FY10

Operational buoys 420 670 1040 1040 1040 1040 1040 1040 1250

Research buoys 200 200 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Add met sensors 40 40 500 670 670 670 670 670 1250

Technology development X X X X X X X

International array size 787 1050 1250 1250 1250 1250 1250 1250 1250

**6.3 Tropical Moored Buoy Network:** Most of the heat from the sun
enters the ocean in the tropical/sub-tropical belt. The advanced
understanding of the role of the tropics in forcing mid-latitude weather
and climate was learned primarily through the observations of the
tropical moored buoy array (TAO/TRITON) in the Pacific. A similar pilot
array in the Atlantic basin (PIRATA) now offers the potential of even
better understanding, improved forecasts, and improved ability to
discern the causes of longer-term changes in the Oceans. In addition to
monitoring the air-sea exchange of heat, the moored buoys provide
platforms for supporting instrumentation to measure carbon dioxide and
rainfall in the tropics. The global tropical moored buoy network will be
expanded from 82 to 119 stations by 2010 and will ultimately span all
three oceans - Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Ocean. This task will
support climate services by providing both ocean and atmospheric
observations to 1) document heat uptake, transport, and release by the
ocean; 2) document carbon sources and sinks; and 3) document the air-sea
exchange of fresh water.

International

> NOAA Contributions Goal

FY03 FY04 FY05 FY06 FY07 FY08 FY09 FY10

Operational buoys 55 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 79

Research buoys 10 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Indian Ocean expansion 3 6 15 15 15 15 33 33

Atlantic Ocean expansion 2 2 5 5 5 5 9

Add salinity sensors 10 10 60 65 65 65 65 65 99

Add flux capability to buoys 5 5 5 5 5 5 8

Technology development X X X X X X X

International network size 79 79 82 84 90 100 115 115 115

**6.4 Ships of Opportunity:** The global atmospheric and oceanic data
from Ships of Opportunity (SOOP) have been the foundation for
understanding long-term changes in marine climate and are essential
input to climate and weather forecast models. Improved instrument
accuracy, automated reporting, and improved information about how the
observations were taken will greatly enhance the quality of these data,
reducing both systematic and random errors. NOAA will improve
meteorological measurement capabilities on the global SOOP fleet for
improved marine weather and climate forecasting in general, and will
concentrate on a specific subset of high accuracy SOOP lines to be
frequently repeated and sampled at high resolution for systematic upper
ocean and atmospheric measurement. This climate-specific subset will
build from 27 lines presently occupied to a designed global network of
51 lines by 2008 and will provide measurements of the upper ocean
thermal structure, sea surface temperature and chemistry, and surface
meteorology of high accuracy. Additionally, the SOOP fleet is the
primary vehicle for deployment of the drifting arrays. This task will
support climate services by providing ocean and atmosphere measurements
needed to 1) document heat uptake, transport, and release by the ocean;
and 2) document ocean carbon sources and sinks (carbon sampling
instrumentation is detailed under a separate task below); and 3)
document the air-sea exchange of water and the ocean's overturning
circulation.

International

NOAA Contributions Goal

FY03 FY04 FY05 FY06 FY07 FY08 FY09 FY10

Operational HRX lines 2 15 21 21 21 21 21 21 26

Research HRX lines 6 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Frequently repeated lines 4 5 8 8 8 8 8 8 25

Add flux/salinity HRX 2 2 7 12 15 15 15 15 26

Auto-met package, VOSClim 0 0 40 100 200 200 200 200 200

Technology development X X X X X X

International lines 26 29 40 40 45 45 51 51 51

**6.5 Argo array of profiling floats**: The heat content of the upper
2000 meters of the world's oceans, and the transfer of that heat to and
from the atmosphere, are variables central to the climate system. The
Argo array of profiling floats is designed to provide essential
broad-scale, basin-wide monitoring of the upper ocean heat content.
Three thousand floats will be deployed worldwide by 2006. The U.S.
contribution is approximately one-half of this international project.
Glider technology will replace standard drifting Argo floats in the
boundary currents and targeted deep circulation regions. This task will
support climate services by providing measurements needed to 1) document
heat uptake, transport, and release by the ocean; and 2) document the
air-sea exchange of water and the ocean's overturning circulation.

International

NOAA Contributions Goal

FY03 FY04 FY05 FY06 FY07 FY08 FY09 FY10

Operational Argo floats 320 1000 1500 1485 1485 1385 1385 1385 2800

Research Argo floats 15 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Operational gliders 0 0 0 0 0 100 100 100 200

Research gliders 3 3 10 20 50 0 0 0 0

Technology development X X X X X X

International array size 1000 1500 2300 3000 3000 3000 3000 3000 3000

**6.6 Ocean Reference Stations:**

**6.6.1 Subtask 1:** NOAA, together with international partners, will
implement a global network of ocean reference station moorings,
expanding from the present six pilot stations to a permanent network of
21 (plus 8 within the tropical moored buoy network) by 2010. NSF's Ocean
Observatories Initiative will provide a major piece of the
infrastructure needed for this network, establishing high-capability
re-locatable moored buoys in remote ocean locations. NOAA will maintain
climate instrumentation aboard the NSF-supplied platforms.

**6.6.2 Subtask 2:** Monitoring the transport within the ocean is a
central element of documenting the overturning circulation of fresh
water and heat and carbon uptake and release; heat and carbon generally
are released to the atmosphere in regions of the ocean far distant from
where they enter. Long-term monitoring of key choke points, such as the
Indonesian through-flow, and of boundary currents along the continents,
such as the Gulf Stream, must be established to measure the primary
routes of ocean heat, carbon, and fresh water transport.

**6.6.3 Subtask 3:** Monitoring thermohaline circulation is a central
element of documenting the ocean's overturning circulation and a
critical need for helping scientists understand the role of the ocean in
abrupt climate change. It is essential that the ocean observing system
maintain watch at a few control points at critical locations. Key
monitoring sites have been identified by an international team of
scientists for deployment of long-term subsurface moored arrays and
repeated temperature, salinity, and chemical tracer surveys from
research vessels. NOAA will focus with Canadian partners on monitoring
the Labrador Sea and upstream locations in Davis Strait and the Canadian
Arctic Archipelago, while European partners will focus on the eastern
north Atlantic. One exception to this is that NOAA will maintain the
Greenland-Iceland-Norwegian (GIN) Seas times-series that was started in
1991. Additionally, to estimate the effect of Antarctic zone water on
the global thermohaline circulation, NOAA will maintain time series
moorings and repeat sections in the northwestern Weddell Sea, and will
establish time series measurements in the Ross Sea. These locations are
important to examine the variability of water mass transformation
processes as they relate to climate variability in the Southern Ocean.

**6.6.4 Summary**: These three subtasks will support climate services by
providing ocean and atmosphere measurements needed to 1) document heat
uptake, transport, and release by the ocean; 2) document ocean carbon
sources and sinks (carbon sampling instrumentation is detailed under a
separate task below; and 3) document the air-sea exchange of water and
the ocean's overturning circulation.

International

> NOAA Contributions Goal

FY03 FY04 FY05 FY06 FY07 FY08 FY09 FY10

Operational flux moorings 1 2 6 7 9 9 9 9 29

Research flux moorings 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Operational full depth stations 0 0 3 5 10 10 10 10 42

Research full depth stations 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Operational transport stations 0 0 2 4 4 5 5 5 10

Research transport stations 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Pacific Raingauge (PACRAIN) 0 28 28 28 28 28 28 28 28

Research rain gauge network 28 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Operational GIN time series 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

Research GIN time series 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Sinking regions, operational 0 2 2 4 4 4 4 4 5

Sinking regions, research 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

S. Hemisphere sections 0 0 0 2 3 3 3 3 3

Technology development X X X X X X

International flux array 6 7 10 14 16 29 29 29 29

**6.7 Coastal Moorings:** Improved near shore measurements from moored
buoys are critical to coastal forecasting as well as to linking the deep
ocean to regional impacts of climate variability. The boundary currents
along continental coastlines are major movers of the ocean's heat and
fresh water (e.g., the Gulf Stream). Furthermore, the coastal regions
are critical to the study of the role of the ocean in the
intensification of storms, which are key to the global atmospheric
transport of heat, momentum and water, and are a significant impact of
climate on society. Coastal arrays are maintained by many nations making
this a "global" network of "coastal" stations. A climate subset of
NOAA's existing network will be improved by augmenting and upgrading the
instrument suite to provide measurements of the upper ocean as well as
the sea surface and surface meteorology. Ten of these moorings will
serve as platforms-of-opportunity for the addition of carbon sampling
instrumentation. This task will support climate services by providing
ocean and atmosphere measurements needed to 1) document heat uptake,
transport, and release by the ocean; 2) document ocean carbon sources
and sinks (carbon sampling instrumentation is detailed under a separate
task below); and 3) document the air-sea exchange of water.

International

> NOAA Contributions Goal

FY03 FY04 FY05 FY06 FY07 FY08 FY09 FY10

Upgrade w/climate sensors 0 0 20 65 65 65 65 65 105

Technology development X X X X X X

International coastal network 0 0 20 85 95 105 105 105 105

**6.8 Ocean Carbon:** Understanding the global carbon cycle and the
accurate measurement of the regional sources and sinks of carbon are of
critical importance to international policy decision making as well as
to forecasting long term trends in climate. Projections of long-term
global climate change are closely linked to assumptions about feedback
effects between the atmosphere, the land, and the ocean. To understand
how carbon is cycled through the global climate system, ocean
measurements are critical. NOAA will add autonomous carbon dioxide
sampling to the moored arrays and the VOS fleet to analyze the seasonal
variability in carbon exchange between the ocean and atmosphere, and in
cooperation with NSF will implement a program of systematic global ocean
surveys that will provide a complete carbon inventory once every ten
years. This task is coordinated with the Global Carbon Cycle Science
program, is dependent on implementation of the ship lines and moored and
drifting arrays, and will support climate services by providing
measurements to document ocean carbon sources and sinks.

International

> NOAA Contributions Goal

FY03 FY04 FY05 FY06 FY07 FY08 FY09 FY10

Inventory lines per decade 6 6 11 11 11 11 11 11 25

Time series moorings 2 2 4 6 6 6 6 6 12

Coastal flux moorings 0 0 0 11 11 11 11 11 29

Flux on ships of opportunity 4 7 12 12 12 12 12 12 21

Research flux on moorings 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Trans rsch flux moorings to ops 0 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2

Technology development X X X X X X X

International flux array 14 17 28 38 48 62 62 62 62

**6.9 Integrated Arctic Observing System:** To understand the role of
the Arctic on global environmental change, the amount of uncertainty in
the causes and trajectories of global climate change needs to be
reduced. Given the sensitivity of the Arctic environment to climate
variability and change, it is in this region that early indications of
the future progression of climate change are likely to be first
detected.

[Ocean Climate Observations in the Arctic Ocean and Northern High
Latitude Seas]{.underline} -- A program of sustained observations of
this area is being conducted through dedicated and shared ship-based
cruises and permanent oceanographic moorings, supplemented by
acquisition and analysis of historical data sets. The long-term goal is
to detect climate-driven physical and ecological change, especially due
to changes in sea ice extent and duration, and in ocean density and
circulation that together may lead to changes in ocean heat transport,
productivity, and food web structure. International collaboration is
essential for completing this program, especially with Russia and
Canada. In FY2003, one new mooring was deployed in the Northern Bering
Sea, a research cruise was conducted to the Chukchi Sea in collaboration
with China, planning was initiated for a future Chukchi Sea cruise in
collaboration with Russia, sea-glider deployments were initiated in the
Labrador Sea, joint US-Canada observations were conducted in Barrow
Strait, and efforts begun to discover, obtain and manage historical data
sets.

[Arctic Sea Ice Observations]{.underline} -- Ice-tethered buoys and
bottom-mounted moorings are deployed to monitor the drift of Arctic sea
ice and to determine its thickness. The long-term goal is to provide an
accurate record of changes in sea ice thickness that, together with
satellite observations of sea ice extent, can provide an estimate of
changes in sea ice volume. This information is critical for improvement
of global climate models and development of a regional Arctic climate
model. Several ice buoys and two ice thickness stations were deployed in
summer 2004.

This task will support climate services by providing ocean and ice
measurements needed to document heat uptake, transport, and release by
the ocean.

International

> NOAA Contributions Goal

FY03 FY04 FY05 FY06 FY07 FY08 FY09 FY10

Arctic pathway moorings 0 0 1 2 4 6 8 8 12

Arctic Ocean moorings 0 0 1 2 4 6 7 7 8

ASOF gateway mooring sets 0.5 0.5 1 1 1 1 2 2 5

Automated drifting stations 0 0 1 2 2 2 2 3 3

Ice buoys 10 10 11 20 20 20 20 20 40

Hydrographic stations 0 0 1 4 6 8 9 10 16

Bering Sea moorings 1 1 1 2 4 6 6 6 6

Western boundary sections 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

Western boundary moorings 0 0 2 2 4 4 4 4 4

Ice buoys and moored stations 10 31 36 36 54 64 78 85 85

**6.10 Dedicated Ship Time:**

**6.10.1 Subtask 1**: Climate Ship time within the UNOLS research fleet
for deployment of the moored and drifting arrays, and for deep ocean
surveys is an essential component of this initiative. The deep ocean
cannot be reached by SOOP and Argo; yet quantification of the carbon and
heat content of the entire ocean column is needed to solve the climate
equations. In addition to providing the survey and deployment platforms
for the autonomous arrays, the research fleet will maintain sensor
suites on a small core of vessels as the highest quality calibration
points for validation of the other system measurements. Annual
requirements for ship time are 54 days in addition to the Ka'imimoana
for TAO/TRITON maintenance, 74 days for the carbon inventory, 34 days
for PIRATA in addition to the French/Brazilian support (see Subtask 2),
47 days for ocean reference stations growing to 120 days, 60 days for
deployment of the drifting arrays in remote regions, and 46 days for
thermohaline circulation monitoring growing to 172 days.

**6.10.2 Subtask 2**: The PIRATA array has been maintained by French
research vessels, once per year in the east, and the Brazilian navy once
per year on the western side of the Atlantic. Two maintenance visits per
year to each mooring are necessary to maintain adequate operational data
flow, as has been demonstrated in the Pacific with the TAO/TRITON array.
The PIRATA consortium (Brazil, France, U.S.A.) has proposed a plan to
establish an international ship base in Natal, Brazil, and operate
cooperatively a new ship dedicated to Atlantic climate operations. The
consortium has proposed that NOAA and French partners cooperate to
acquire a new ship, and build the capacity in Brazil to support
long-term climate operations. The new ship would support Argo and
drifter deployments as well as PIRATA maintenance. The U.S. homeport for
the ship, and support base for north Atlantic operations, would be
Charleston, SC; Natal would support operations in the tropical and south
Atlantic. This is a new concept in international collaboration and
capacity building. In 2003, NOAA began feasibility study together with
French and Brazilian partners to identify the best long-term solution to
this issue. In the mean time, NOAA will begin supplementing the
once-per-year French and Brazilian maintenance cruises with a second
maintenance cruise using UNOLS or other charter operations (see Subtask
1).

**6.10.3 Summary:** This task will support climate services by providing
multi-use platforms for the ocean and atmosphere measurements needed
to 1) document heat uptake, transport, and release by the ocean; 2)
document ocean carbon sources and sinks; and 3) document the air-sea
exchange of water and the ocean's overturning circulation.

International

Ship days at sea NOAA Contributions Goal

FY03 FY04 FY05 FY06 FY07 FY08 FY09 FY10

Ka'imimoana 276 276 276 276 276 276 276 276 276

TAO/TRITON additional 54 54 54 54 54 54 54 54 90

PIRATA 0 0 34 34 34 34 34 34 124

Carbon survey 74 74 74 74 74 74 74 74 240

Coastal flux maps 0 0 0 36 40 40 40 40 240

Reference Stations 47 47 47 60 102 120 120 120 480

Deployment of drifting arrays 0 0 0 60 60 60 60 60 100

Thermohaline circulation 46 46 46 46 90 172 172 172 340

Arctic hydrographic sections [0 0 0 60 60 60 60 60]{.underline} 120

NOAA total 497 497 531 531 640 730 830 830

International fleet 550 610 750 900 1200 1620 1620 1620 1620

**6.11 Satellites:**

The initial ocean observing system for climate depends on space based
global measurements of 1) sea surface temperature, 2) sea surface
height, 3) surface vector winds, and 4) ocean color. These satellite
contributions are detailed in other NOAA program plans.

**6.11.1 Sea surface temperature:** Satellite measurements of sea
surface temperature are included in NOAA's operational satellite program
and the NPOESS program. Satellite data provide high-resolution sea
surface temperature data. Both infrared and microwave satellite data are
important. Microwave sea surface temperature data have a significant
coverage advantage over infrared sea surface temperature data, because
microwave data can be retrieved in cloud-covered regions while infrared
cannot. However, microwave sea surface temperatures are at a much lower
spatial resolution than infrared. In addition microwave sea surface
temperatures cannot be obtained within roughly 50 km of land. A
combination of both infrared and microwave data are needed because they
have different coverage and error properties. Drifting buoy and other
*in situ* data are critically important in providing calibration and
validation in satellite data as well as providing bias correction of
these data. Satellite biases can occur from orbit changes, satellite
instrument changes and changes in physical assumptions on the physics of
the atmosphere (e.g., through the addition of volcanic aerosols). Thus,
drifting buoy and other *in situ* data are needed to correct for any of
these changes.

**6.11.2 Sea surface height:** The value of spaced-based altimeter
measurements of sea surface height has now been clearly demonstrated by
the TOPEX/Poseidon and Jason missions. Changes in sea level during major
El Nino events can now be discerned at high resolution and provide
realistic model initializations for seasonal climate forecasting. The
same data, when calibrated with island tide gauge observations, are also
able to monitor the rate of global sea level change with an accuracy of
1 mm per year. The planned NPOESS altimeter will be adequate for shorter
term forecasting, but the NPOESS altimeter will not fly in the same
orbit as TOPEX/Poseidon and Jason; and for monitoring long-term sea
level change, continuation of precision altimeter missions in the
TOPEX/Poseidon/Jason orbit is necessary. Jason follow-on altimeter
missions (Ocean Surface Topography Mission, OSTM) are necessary to
continue the long-term sea level record. NASA and CNES have asked NOAA
and EUMETSAT to transition the Jason-class altimeter from research to
operations beginning with the OSTM. In FY2006, NOAA will assume primary
U.S. responsibility for continuing this international effort. This task
will contribute to climate services by providing the long term records
needed to 1) document sea level change; 2) document heat uptake,
transport, and release by the ocean; and 3) document the ocean's
overturning circulation (sea surface height contributes to the
measurement of ocean heat and fresh water content and their transport).

**6.11.3 Surface vector winds, ocean color, and sea ice:** The best
methods of sustaining satellite measurement of surface vector winds,
ocean color, and sea ice are still a research and development question;
over the next five years NOAA, NASA, and NPOESS will weigh the
alternatives and determine the long term strategy for maintenance of
these elements.

**6.12 Data and Assimilation Subsystems**:

**6.12.1 Subtask 1 -- Long Term Stewardship:** The value of the
observations does not end with their initial use in detecting and
forecasting climate variability. The data must be retained and made
available for retrospective analyses to understand long-term climate
change, and for designing observing system operations and improvements.
NOAA's long history and unique expertise in environmental data
management will be applied to the ocean observing system. NOAA also will
include the vast holdings of historical ocean observations within the
context of the integrated environmental data access and archive system.
Support will also be provided for a World Ocean Database to incorporate
modern data into an integrated profile system.

**6.12.2 Subtask 2 -- Data Management and Communications**: A robust and
scalable data management infrastructure is essential to the vision of a
sustained ocean observing system. NOAA's ocean climate data element will
contribute a global component to the Data Management and Communications
System (DMAC) of the U.S. Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) that
is being implemented by the National Oceanographic Partnership Program
agencies. The DMAC plan integrates data transport, quality control, data
assembly, limited product generation, metadata management, data
archeology, data archival, data discovery, and administration functions.
Uniform access to data will be addressed through the concept of
"middleware" connectivity -- a common set of standards and protocols
that connects all data sources to data users. The middleware approach
shields end users from many of the traditional barriers that have been
associated with climate data access, including file formats, the
distributed location of data, and the large size of some data sets. The
preliminary design has been developed by the National Virtual Ocean Data
System (NVODS) project.

The nature of IOOS requires the DMAC to be very highly distributed,
supporting both large and small data providers at Federal, regional,
state, municipal and academic levels. Data assembly centers will be
built into the design to add fault-tolerance and increase ease of use.
The GODAE server presently at Navy's Fleet Numerical Modeling Operations
Center (FNMOC) in Monterey will provide robust, operational access to
aggregated and quality-controlled real-time data streams and will be a
primary assembly center for NOAA's real-time global measurements.
Delayed-mode data sources will be distributed across many institutions
including the Asia-Pacific Research Data Center (APDRC) (part of the
International Pacific Research Center (IPRC) at the University of
Hawaii) and the NOAA Data Centers. The APDRC will provide data assembly
services for delayed-mode observations in a cooperative partnership with
the GODAE Server. Historical data set serving is also an important
function of the distributed system.

The GODAE experimental period ends in 2007. The GODAE server system is
central to the sustained integrated ocean observing system and the
server functions that have been developed during GODAE must be
continued. The NOPP agencies must be prepared to continue these
functions either at Monterey or some other location. The Navy has not
expressed interest in long-term support of the GODAE server and NOAA is
presently planning to assume the leadership role in sustaining this
critical part of the ocean observing system infrastructure.

The Data Management and Communications component of NOAA's ocean climate
observing system must also deliver the information products needed by
NOAA scientists and managers for decision support. The products must
provide the information needed to monitor the month-by-month
effectiveness of the observing system and to diagnose problems. The
products should include intelligible scientific graphics and
human-readable numeric tables that provide an overview of the integrated
system, selectively merging the data from all relevant measurement
streams. These information products will be a component of NOAA's
contribution to IOOS.

**6.12.3 Subtask 3 -- Four dimensional data assimilation including
GODAE:** For climate forecasting, the combined fields from many
different networks are used as initial conditions to begin the forecast.
These combined fields, or analyses, are also used to document what the
ocean and atmosphere are doing at present and what they did in the past,
thus providing a record of the changing climate. By routinely comparing
models and data, shortcomings in the observing system can be identified
and both the models and forecasts can be improved. To utilize
effectively the ocean observations, NOAA will expand the current ocean
analyses (presently focused on the tropical Pacific) to the global
domain and will develop and implement improved assimilation subsystems
that can more effectively use the new data types that are being
collected. The principal vehicle for developing this capability,
involving both national and international communities and producing a
variety of marine products in addition to the use of these observations
in forecast systems, will be the Global Ocean Data Assimilation
Experiment (GODAE). The global data and ocean product delivery will be
operationalized as a contribution to, and continue as a follow-on to,
GODAE through the interagency/international server infrastructure being
implemented by GODAE; NOAA will provide the primary U.S. support to
sustain the server infrastructure over the long term. In addition to
improving initializations for seasonal forecasting at NCEP, NOAA will
implement sustained ocean data assimilation activities at GFDL to enable
experimental decadal forecasts, provide ocean initial conditions for
IPCC type scenarios, monitor ocean heat uptake, monitor the thermohaline
circulation for abrupt changes, and develop a capability for monitoring
changes in oceanic carbon sources and sinks.

**6.12.4 Summary:** This task will support climate services by providing
the integrating data, synthesis, and analysis infrastructure for the
ocean and atmosphere measurements, both *in situ* and space based,
needed to: 1) document long-term trends in sea level change; 2) document
heat uptake, transport, and release by the ocean; 3) document ocean
carbon sources and sinks; and 3) document the air-sea exchange of water
and the ocean's overturning circulation.

International

> NOAA Contributions Goal

FY03 FY04 FY05 FY06 FY07 FY08 FY09 FY10

Data set development X X X X X X X X X

World Ocean Database X X X X X X

Standards and protocols X X X X X X X

Systems interoperability X X X X X X X X X

Automated monitoring tools X X X X X X X X X

IPRC server X X X X X X X X X

GODAE pilot activities (JIMO) X X X X X X X X X

Operationalize GODAE pilot X X X X X

Sustain GODAE server X X X X X

Global initialization for S-I X X X X X X X X X

Experimental decadal forecast X X X X X X X X

Conditions for IPCC scenarios X X X X X X X X

Monitor ocean heat uptake X X X X X X X X

Monitor thermohaline circulation X X X X X X

Monitor carbon sources and sinksX X X X X X X X X

Argos data processing --

Drifting Buoy arrays X X X X X X X X X

Argos data processing --

Tropical Moored Buoy networkX X X X X X X X X

Argos data processing --

Ocean Ref stations X X X X X X X X X

**7.0 Management Plan -- System organization and product delivery**

A global effort of the proposed magnitude must be integrated, organized,
and managed as a system in order to be effective. Matrix management is
NOAA's corporate business practice and standard protocol. This
management plan will follow that protocol by capitalizing on the
capabilities that presently exist across the agency while building
toward the vision of a single composite system.

Implementation of the individual *in situ* networks will continue to be
through distributed centers of expertise at the NOAA Research
laboratories, the National Ocean Service Center for Operational
Oceanographic Products and Services, the National Data Buoy Center, and
the university laboratories that have developed the instruments and
techniques. The space components and data management will be centered in
the NOAA Satellite and Information Service. The focal point for
developing global ocean data assimilation capabilities will be the
Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in partnership with the National
Centers for Environmental Prediction and university-based applied
research centers.

To weld the distributed efforts together into the single vision, NOAA
has established a project Office of Climate Observation (OCO) under the
auspices of the NOAA Climate Program. Organizationally the project
office is located within the Office of Global Programs (OGP). OGP
embodies a global perspective and is experienced in matrix management.
One of OGP's four strategic objectives is "development of the *in situ*
ocean component of the global climate observing system." Additionally,
for the climate observing system institutional mechanisms must be put in
place to ensure continuous and close involvement of the research
community. Research, operations, and management are inseparable for
climate observation and OGP will hard-wire that relationship.

The Director of OGP utilizing the OCO is charged with advancing NOAA's
multi-year program plan for *Building a Sustained Ocean Observing System
for Climate.* The OCO is a hybrid combining the functions of a
traditional program office with the functions of a center for system
monitoring, evaluation, integration, and action. The individual network
managers will continue to monitor and evaluate the performance of their
individual networks, while the OCO will build the capability to monitor
and evaluate the performance of the system as a whole, and take action
to evolve the *in situ* networks for overall effectiveness and
efficiency in meeting climate observation objectives.

The OCO is the management focus for the distributed ocean network
operations and, utilizing the NOAA Observing System Architecture,
establishes and maintains operational linkages between the networks and
NOAA's other *in situ* and satellite elements and the data and modeling
activities that are essential components of climate observation. The
office provides a central point of contact within NOAA for coordination
with the other agencies and nations involved in observing system
implementation. The office receives and acts on feedback from the
observing system customers - the operational forecast centers,
international research programs, and major scientific assessments - and
acts on their observational requirements in accordance with the NOAA
Requirements-Based Management Process.

**7.1 Subtask 1 -- System Monitoring:** The OCO monitors the status of
the globally distributed networks to anticipate gaps and overlaps in
their combined capabilities. Real-time reports from all platforms are
being centralized so that up-to-date status can be displayed at all
times. The office is working to report system statistics and metrics,
routinely and on demand.

**7.2 Subtask 2 -- Evaluation:** An team of expert scientists both
internal and external to NOAA is being established to continually
evaluate the effectiveness of the networks in meeting the performance
measures and the adequacy of the deliverables in meeting the system
objectives. The team of experts will evaluate analysis/synthesis
products, recommend product improvements, recommend where additional
sampling is needed or redundancies are not needed, recommend better
utilization of existing and new *in situ* and satellite data, and assess
the impacts of proposed changes to the system.

**7.3 Subtask 3 -- Action:** System monitoring and evaluation will be
useless unless there is responsive action taken to build the system, fix
problems, and improve sampling strategies. Decisions must be made to
implement the best solutions to conflicting requirements (multiple
partners and customers have differing missions and will inevitably have
differing requirements), to re-deploy existing resources to best improve
the system, to select the highest priorities for system extensions and
funding of new ideas, and to agree on quid pro quo with interagency and
international partners. The OCO is charged with advancing NOAA's
multi-year program plan and with evolving the system for maximum
effectiveness and efficiency along the way.

**7.4 Subtask 4 -- Intra-agency, Interagency, and International
Coordination**: National and international coordination is essential to
success in building the global ocean observing system for climate. The
OCO is charged with building the infrastructure necessary to organize
NOAA's ocean observing efforts along three axes -- 1) climate services,
2) the U.S. Integrated Ocean Observing System, and 3) international
implementation.

1\) For climate services the ocean observations must be available to be
combined with data from the atmospheric networks, land surface networks,
and cryosphere networks. The requirements from the three user
communities -- the forecast centers, research programs, and scientific
assessments -- must be received and synthesized into common requirements
or prioritized if they do not resolve readily.

2\) For the U.S. Integrated Ocean Observing System, NOAA's climate
system will make a significant contribution to the global component
where like data from the various platforms, *in situ* and space-based,
must be combined to form complete fields (e.g., sea surface temperature
from ships, drifting and moored buoys, and satellites). NOAA's efforts
must be combined with the efforts of the other NOPP agencies into a
seamless system.

3\) For international implementation NOAA must work with the
implementation panels of the Joint IOC/WMO Commission for Oceanography
and Marine Meteorology (JCOMM) to ensure that consistent standards and
formats are used by all participating nations so that data can be easily
shared and that consistent quality can be expected from all platforms
regardless of their national origin.

In addition to dedicated infrastructure needed for NOAA to operate an
office for climate observation, dedicated infrastructure is also needed
for operation of the interagency and intergovernmental planning and
implementation coordination organizations. These
interagency/international organizations rely on funding from the member
agencies for their support. NOAA has historically provided a significant
portion of the funding needed to maintain the existing international
secretariats, science and implementation panels, and capacity building
efforts of GOOS, GCOS, and the JCOMM. This funding support has been ad
hock and in general from the research programs. As a central component
of sustaining the long-term, operational global climate observing
system, support for the national/international
coordination/implementation infrastructure will be institutionalized via
the OCO.

**7.5 Subtask 5 -- Annual Report on the Ocean's Role in Climate:** The
organizing framework to bring the multiple elements of the composite
ocean observing system together is the routine delivery of an *Annual
Report on the State of the Ocean and the Ocean Observing System for
Climate*. The National Climate Change Science Program strategic plan has
identified the critical need for regular reports documenting the present
state of the climate system components. NOAA's Office of Climate
Observation is leading the national effort to develop this reporting for
the ocean component. The theme of the report is the CCSP overarching
question for guiding climate observations and monitoring- "What is the
current state of the climate, how does it compare with the past, and how
can observations be improved to better initialize and validate models
for prediction or long term projections?"

The annual report synthesizes satellite and *in situ* observations
integrated with models and provides the products to decision makers, the
science community, and the public. This reporting framework also
establishes a formal mechanism for implementing a "user-driven"
observing system and for reporting on the system's performance in
meeting the requirements of the operational forecast centers,
international research programs, and major scientific assessments.
Stakeholders are invited to provide formal recommendations for system
improvement and evolution as part of the annual report process.

The annual report contains four chapters:

1\) This chapter describes The Role of the Ocean in Climate and includes
a description of ENSO, SST, sea ice, and sea level, and the various
demands on the system incorporating seasonal, interannual, decadal, and
climate change time scales. This chapter sets the context for the report
and outlines common themes, including the significance of the global
ocean observing system and the demands on the system.

2\) The second chapter documents the State of the Ocean. The target
audience is decision makers and non-scientists. This chapter is written
by the experts in the field and is an annually updated climatology of
the ocean, placed in historical context, with discussion of the present
uncertainties and with pointers to products of greater detail and
climate applications.

3\) The third chapter documents the State of the Observing System. The
target audience is NOAA management. This chapter has two sections:

a)  System Progress in meeting milestones is documented by the network
    managers for their projects and by the OCO for the system in total.
    Annual statistics and status are given.

b)  Work plans for the next fiscal year include future efforts.

4\) Chapter four recaps the State of the Science. The target audience is
scientists. The final chapter of the report contains a bibliography of
refereed publications from scientific journals treating the global
observation of ocean heat, carbon, fresh water, and sea level change.
Each year a selected number of abstracts of particularly relevant
scientific papers are published with the report.

**7.6 Subtask 6 -- External Review:** The execution of this plan will be
subject to normal management review in accordance with NOAA's
Requirements-Based Management Process. Additionally, for specific
programmatic advice and guidance, the Climate Observing System Council
(COSC) has been established to review the program's contribution to the
international Global Climate Observing System and to recommend effective
ways for the program to respond to the long-term observational needs of
the operational forecast centers, international research programs, and
major scientific assessments. The Council is comprised of members both
internal and external to NOAA who individually offer their expert
advice; the Council is not expected to develop consensus opinions. The
term of membership is two years with a renewal option for two additional
terms. The Council meets at least annually to:

-   Advise the OCO on priorities for sustaining and enhancing components
    of the global climate observing system.

-   Review the accomplishments and future plans of specific program
    activities.

-   Recommend realignment of activities, or entirely new activities,
    within the program as appropriate to satisfy the evolving
    requirements for climate observation.

-   Bring to the OCO a broad view on national and international climate
    research and operational activities and their implications.

-   Provide coordinating linkages with national and international
    programs requiring and/or contributing to the implementation of the
    global climate observing system.

-   Advise the OCO on the balance of activities within the program in
    the context of NOAA's overarching climate service requirements, of
    other national and international requirements, and of other national
    and international contributions to the global climate observing
    system.

7.7 System management and product delivery milestones:

International

> NOAA Contributions Goal

FY03 FY04 FY05 FY06 FY07 FY08 FY09 FY10

System Monitoring X X X X X X X X X

System Evaluation:

Seasonal forecasting X X X X X X X

Decadal forecasting X X X X X X X X

Climate change X X X X X X

Sea level change X X X X X X X X

Carbon sources and sinks X

Air-sea exchange,heat/water X X X X X X X X

Heat storage/thermohaline circulationX X X X X X X X

SST X X X X X X X X X

Sea Ice X X X X X X X X

Interagency/International panels X X X X X X X X

International capacity building X X X X X X

Transition SST eval res to ops X X X X X X X X X

Mgmt -- wkshps & science mtgs X X X X X X X X

Mgmt -- administration & finance X X X X X X X X

Mmgt ops funded from research X X X X X X X X X

Annual Report X X X X X X X X

External review X X X X X X

**8.0 Education**

The NOAA Office of Climate Observation sponsors three educational
initiatives:

1\) Teacher at Sea Program -- OCO sponsors one or two teachers each year
to participate in ocean research on board NOAA and other research
vessels.

2\) Adopt a Drifter Program -- OCO established this program in December
2004 to enable K-16 teachers and their students to adopt a drifting buoy
by partnering with an international school. They can follow their buoy's
movement across the ocean by using an Adopt a Drifter Program website.

3\) OCO is launching a student internship program to enrich students'
understanding of and appreciation for NOAA and observing system science,
and to provide additional support for OCO office projects.

![](media/image1.jpeg){width="5.998611111111111in"
height="6.866666666666666in"}

Table 1. From *The Action Plan for GOOS/GCOS and Sustained Observation
for CLIVAR*

by Needler et al. \-- *OCEANOBS 99*

######  

**Appendix A**

**Foundation Documents**

*Observing the Oceans in the 21^st^ Century*, edited by Chester J.
Koblinsky and Neville R. Smith, 2001, GODAE Project Office, Bureau of
Meteorology, Melbourne, Australia, ISBN 0642 70618 2.

*OCEANOBS 99*, proceedings of the International Conference on the Ocean
Observing System for Climate, GCOS/GOOS/WCRP Ocean Observations Panel
for Climate and the CLIVAR Upper Ocean Panel, Saint-Raphael, France,
October 1999.

*International Sea Level Workshop Report*, GCOS/GOOS/WCRP Ocean
Observations Panel for Climate and the CLIVAR Upper Ocean Panel, April
1998, GCOS #43, GOOS #55, ICPO #16.

*A Large Scale CO~2~ Observing Plan: In Situ Oceans and Atmosphere
(LSCOP),* a contribution to the implementation of the U.S. Carbon Cycle
Science Plan by the *In situ* Large-Scale CO~2~ Observations Working
Group, April 2002.

Implementation Plan for the Global Observing System for Climate in
support of the UNFCCC (GCOS-92), the Global Climate Observing System,
October 2004, GCOS #92, WMO/TD #1219.

![](media/image2.png){width="5.559722222222222in"
height="4.174305555555556in"}

**Figure 1**

![](media/image3.png){width="5.559722222222222in"
height="4.104861111111111in"}

> **Figure 2**