Ocean Observatories and Information: Building a Global Ocean Observing Network

Ocean observatories are collections of networks of sensors that are deployed to sample the ocean physics, chemistry, and biology. The goal of these networks is to overcome chronic undersampling of the oceans by providing sustained measurements in space and time. The data collected by these networks are used to address a range of basic and applied research questions, hindered by a lack of data. The ocean observatories represent collections of platforms capable of collecting data over a range of scales. The platforms include ships, satellites, radars, and a range of Lagrangian systems. Data from the individual platforms are aggregated by sophisticated cyberinfrastructure software systems, which when combined with global communications allow for two-way communication between the shoreside personnel and the networks that can be deployed anywhere in the world. This two-way communication allows the networks to be adaptively configured to improve sampling of specific processes. The maturation of these systems comes at a fortuitous time as the oceans are increasingly showing evidence of changes in the physics, chemistry, and biology over the last few decades. Understanding those changes will require the data collected by the ocean observatories.