Sustaining Ocean Observations to Understand Future Changes in Earth's Climate (2017) / Chapter Skim
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5 Overcoming Challenges and Identifying New Opportunities
5 Overcoming Challenges and Identifying New Opportunities
Pages 97-108
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From page 97... ...
Natural climate variability, as represented in this report by the El Niño–Southern Oscillation, affects everything from monsoon strength in Asia to variations in mid-latitude storm tracks and winter weather. Sustained ocean observations are key to both understanding and improving natural climate predictability on seasonal-to-decadal timescales.
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From page 98... ...
CHALLENGES In assessing the current state of the ocean climate observing system and its expected evolution, the committee identified major challenges in sustaining ocean observing that guide the conclusions provided in this report: • The issue of access within Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) for deploying observing system elements, or for the drift of mobile plat forms such as Argo floats, remains a challenge and can act as a disincentive to deployment in some regions of the global ocean.
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From page 99... ...
of the World Meteorological Organization for real-time information on climate variability and change as it pertains to regional climate phenomena such as El Niño. These efforts have been effective in identifying global priority ocean variables, establishing global ambition and plans, facilitating national resource mobilization, and harmonizing observing efforts among countries.
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From page 100... ...
for sustained ocean observations and provide a solid foundation for selecting and prioritizing ocean variables for sustained observing. Since the early 1990s, the number of countries involved in ocean observing has increased due to the capacity-building efforts of the Partnership for Observation of the Global Oceans and other ocean observing programs.
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From page 101... ...
This fundamental disconnect between short-term funding increments and the decadal commitment required for ocean climate observing requires ongoing education and awareness campaigns. Further, the committee reviewed the past performance and future plans for sustaining ocean observations for climate and found ocean observing to be dependent on multiple federal agencies.
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From page 102... ...
A high-level federal coordinating body such as NORLC would be able to provide program oversight and prepare budgets for a successful observing system. A key role of this coordinating body would be sponsoring the development and periodic review/update of a long-term strategy with associated resources for sustaining ocean observations for understanding climate change.
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From page 103... ...
Philanthropists may be able to contribute to long-term ocean observing to understand climate change through the endowment of faculty or senior graduate billets at academic institutions or through continuing support of training and technology development programs. Given an interest by foundations in supporting ocean conservation initiatives and the trend of flat or reduced federal funding, particularly for ocean observations linked to understanding climate change, there may be opportunities to seek philanthropic support for sustaining key ocean observations and observing capabilities.
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From page 104... ...
The OCP's mission would be to communicate the ocean climate observing system's socioeconomic benefits to potential partners and policy makers with the goal of ensuring the long-term fiscal viability of the ocean observing enterprise. It would seek to demonstrate value for investment to federal funders and entrainment of nonfederal partners, including businesses and philanthropy to harmonize and leverage their contributions.
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From page 105... ...
Finding: Direct scientific involvement in sustained observing programs, from design to implementation to analysis, synthesis, and publication, ensures that the ocean observing system will be robust in terms of data quality, incorpo ration of new methods and technologies, and scientific analyses; all are es sential elements for realizing the value of long-term, sustained observations. One responsibility of the OCP would be to engage universities and sponsor activities to educate, attract, and retain the talent needed in sustained observations, whether carried out by government programs or within universities or the private sector.
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From page 106... ...
Philanthropic efforts have in part filled this gap and the OCP could encourage more support there. THE RESEARCH FLEET While improving current technologies and developing new ones, such as autonomous ocean-going vehicles, holds promise for increasing the efficiency of observing system operations, ships and, in particular, global and ocean class vessels will continue to be required to deploy and maintain ocean observing platforms.
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From page 107... ...
POTENTIAL NEW MODELS OF SUPPORT FOR SUSTAINED OCEAN OBSERVING This report identifies the many benefits of sustaining and growing the capabilities of the global ocean observing system to advance climate science and improve capabilities to anticipate changes critical for decisions on mitigating and adapting to climate change. Because ocean climate data are needed to inform national security, economic, and societal decisions on climate change and other ocean-related issues and given the intergovernmental negotiations required for participating in a global system, responsibility for supporting the ocean observing system falls predominantly on the federal government in the United States.
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