Euro-Argo ERIC

Since 2014, Euro-Argo ERIC has taken the pulse of the ocean to better understand and predict its role in the climate system and its health. One of its main objectives is to develop a sustainable and long-term European contribution to the Argo international programme, monitoring the interior of the ocean, through a fleet of profiling robotic instruments, called “Argo floats”. Argo data iscrucial in many aspects of our daily life, from enhancing weather and climate forecasts to retrieving lost cargo or supporting the fishing industry. Ocean observations are also already viewed as essential, in a fast-changing context of serious concerns about the health of the oceans together with an acknowledgment of their role in climate change research and the carbon offsetting. For all these reasons, there is a growing demand for timely, reliable and accessible ocean observations, and the associated data systems and operational engineering. Historically, the initial Argo programme focused on two essential climate parameters, temperature and salinity, in the upper 2 000 metres of the ocean. Euro-Argo is now at a key turning point as it embraces the new OneArgo design, a United Nations endorsed set of actions to expand this initial Core Argo mission to a "global, full-depth and multidisciplinary ocean observing" system. Thus, recent technological advances now allow floats to reach a profiling depth of 4 000 to 6 000 metres (Deep-Argo). Furthermore, biogeochemical sensors have been integrated to measure biogeochemical parameters such as oxygen concentration, pH or chlorophyll-a (BGC-Argo). Henceforth, OneArgo aims to implement these technological advances to achieve the same data quality and scientific excellence for these two new Deep and BGC missions as for the initial Core mission.