Monitoring the Ocean Climate Change with Argo
Since its start, Euro-Argo partners have been discussing closely with the European Commission (DG-MARE, DG-RESEARCH AND DG-GROWTH) on supporting the Euro-Argo Infrastructure to develop a long-term european contribution to Argo. In April 2015, a proposal has been submitted to DG-MARE through EASME and definitely signed in mid-june 2015. In the framework of the action « Monitoring the Oceans » of the EMFF Work Programme 2015, the MOCCA project (Monitoring the Ocean Climate Change with Argo) started end June 2015, and is scheduled for a 5-year period (2015-2020).
With a MOCCA contribution of 4M€, the ERIC with its members will add an additional 20% (i.e. 1M€) that will generate a total of 5M€ allowing three actions :
- Procurement of 150 T/S Argo floats (Core and Iridium) during 2015-2016,
- Arrangement for their deployment in 2016-2017, including at-sea monitoring ,
- Collected data processing in real-time and delayed-mode, during the period 2015-2019.
MOCCA will focus on 5 target deployment areas :
- Southern Ocean (ice free), to improve the actual poor density in Argo network.
- Nordic Seas (ice free): based on actual national plans, there are gaps in the area from target identified in the Euro-Argo Strategy document.
- Marginal Seas endhancement: Baltic Sea (2 floats), Black Sea (2 floats), Mediterranean Sea (Aegean and Levantine Seas).
- Contribution to the global network.
The DG‐MARE now contributes, in the name of the European Union, to the maintenance of the international network of ARGO floats. It is thereby financing, over three years, an integrated service covering purchasing, deployment and return of data acquired from 150 new floats (of the CORE ARGO type: Temperature and salinity).
IRSI via the Coriolis database, receives the data, decodes it, distributes it in real-time and processes it in delayed time (in collaboration with LOPS).