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General Studies 3 >> Enivornment & Ecology

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OCEAN CARBON OBSERVING SYSTEM REPORT 2022

                     Ocean Carbon Observing System

Source: Down To Earth
 
 
Context:
The Ocean Observing System Report Card, 2022 pointed at inequality in the operational services across the oceans like the Indian Ocean, Atlantic Ocean, and the Southern Ocean.
Key Points:
  • The system to observe carbon concentration in the world's oceans is extremely inadequate to meet the growing & urgent need for information on oceanic carbon.
  • This is worrying given that 26% of the 40 gigatonnes of carbon emitted into the atmosphere annually because of human activities is absorbed by the oceans.
  • Oceanic carbon information is thus critical for designing decarbonisation policies & needs investments.
According to the Global Ocean Observing System(GOOS), the carbon network is immature & only 5% of platforms at sea carry a biogeochemical sensor, including carbon dioxide sensors.
  • GOOS is a global system for sustained observations of the ocean.
  • The environment monitoring systems, including air & ocean, were affected during the pandemic.
  • But most activities were slowly returning to normal & continued automation was supporting increased data delivery.
  • For example, ship-based meteorological observations delivered to users have increased 25% through the improvement of automatic weather stations.
OOSRC:
  • Ocean Observing System Report Card has been published annually since 2017.
  • It focuses on an integrated observing system that adds value to society across the delivery areas of climate, operational services & ocean health.
  • The report card has always highlighted physical & biogeochemical observations.
  • But the OOSRC has highlighted biological observations for the first time.
  • This will help provide a global view of the state of ocean observations & identifying progress, key challenges & opportunities to enhance the system.
  • The report card also urged investments in areas including strengthening the capacity to collect data from a growing mix of ocean carbon sensors & platforms and ensuring access to FAIR data.
Fair Data means it meets principles of findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability.
Challenges:
There are challenges across a few regions & networks which remain affected.
  • The International Argo program maintains a global array of about 3,800 floats that measure the pressure, temperature, and salinity of the upper 2,000 meters of the world's ocean.
  • This is a major component of both GOOS & global climate observing system, providing near-real-time data.
  • But the Argo profiling float array is providing 15% fewer data as compared to pre-pandemic levels & saw a decrease in deployment across the last four years.
  • The Southern Ocean & some marginal seas remain largely under-sampled due to operational challenges.
  • Half of the GTMBA(Global Tropical Moored Buoy Array) is operational in the Atlantic, 75% in the Pacific & only 10% in the Indian ocean.
Indian Ocean:
The Indian Ocean experienced a multi-year decline in coverage of floats & drifters while the Atlantic shows a consistent oversampling.
The Indian Ocean, in particular, has emerged as the biggest victim of climate change.
The changes in the Indian Ocean were linked with increased rainfall in east Africa, and extreme weather in Australia.
Early warning systems:
Early warning systems are essential to reduce the risk for coastal zones, communities which are increasingly at risk from rising sea levels.
GOOS, satellite observations have contributed to advancing weather & flood warnings.
Rising ocean temperatures and acidification are impacting phytoplankton and can lead to important changes in food webs.
Epilogue:
There is a need to improve the forecasting of the ecosystem services provided by phytoplankton.
Ocean science can fully support countries to monitor ocean health & achieve the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development.
 

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