PMEL’s Contribution to Observing and Analyzing Decadal Global Ocean Changes Through Sustained Repeat Hydrography

Abstract

The ocean is warming, acidifying, and losing oxygen. The Global Ocean Ship-based Hydrographic Investigations Program (GO-SHIP) carries out repeat hydrographic surveys along specified transects throughout all ocean basins to allow accurate and precise quantification of changes in variables such as temperature, salinity, carbon, oxygen, nutrients, velocity, and anthropogenic tracers, and uses these observations to understand ventilation patterns, deoxygenation, heat uptake, ocean carbon content, and changes in circulation. GO-SHIP provides global, full-depth, gold-standard data for model validation and calibration of autonomous sensors, including Argo. The Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, through sustained funding from NOAA, has developed methods to measure several of the variables routinely sampled through GO-SHIP and is a core contributor to these repeat hydrographic cruises.