December 14th, 2009

OceanObs'09 Conference Statament: Reasons for the ocean observing system must be sustained and enhanced

The OOCS was presented in the OceanObs'09 conference held from 21-25 Sep 2009 in Venice, Italy. Today, the final Conference Statement was published. The statement hightlights the relevance of ocean observing systems by providing the following reasons:

BECAUSE systematic observation of the properties of the ocean and the information derived are changing what we know about the ocean and its implications for society,

BECAUSE the real-time flow of these observations underpin the development, production, and delivery of many ocean services and support coastal zone management,

BECAUSE global ocean information is critical to support forecasting of climate, weather and natural hazards from daily to centennial time scales,

BECAUSE the development of an increasing range of ocean assessments and climate services for planning, early warning, adaptation and mitigation, depend upon availability of accurate observations and models of the world ocean,

BECAUSE the ocean is an important sink of anthropogenic CO2, and ocean acidification potentially has significant impacts on marine ecosystems,

BECAUSE sustainable management of marine living resources depends on timely and accurate monitoring of and information on biogeochemical cycles and ecosystem function,

BECAUSE biodiversity is understood to be a key factor in ensuring sustainable ecosystem function,

BECAUSE healthy coastal environments and their interactions with the open ocean are important to society, and

BECAUSE the oceans remain seriously undersampled, and no single nation can perform all necessary ocean observations.

For accessing the full pdf document click here.