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3 Oceanic Essential Climate Variables
3.1 Description of national contribution to oceanographic ECV
The German contribution to international networks and co-operation on climate research in
the ocean is distributed over a wide range of centres of expertise at joint institutes, universi
ties and operational agencies. Among the partners in this field are the Alfred-Wegener-
Institute (AWI), the Centre for Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (ZMAW), the Federal Mari
time and Hydrographic Agency (BSH), the German Meteorological Service (DWD), the Leib
nitz Institute of Marine Science (IfM-Geomar), the Institute of Environmental Physics (IUP-
Bremen) and others.
Suitable measuring instrumentation for field observations has been developed and used un
der German environmental research assistance measures. The measuring platforms availa
ble include aircrafts, research vessels (e.g. ,Polarstern‘), merchant vessels, drifting buoys,
moorings and remotely operated vehicles (ROVs).
The BSH funds equipment for 2 merchant vessels conducting temperature measurements
along 2 Atlantic XBT sections (AX03, AX11). These are part of the set of sections selected
by the GCOS/WCRP Ocean Observations Panel for Climate (OOPC) and CLIVAR as Ship of
Opportunity Programme (SOOP) lines to fulfil the upper ocean data requirements which have
been established by GOOS and GCOS. The data are transmitted in near real-time to the
Global Telecommunication network (GTS) of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
The Federal Maritime Agency exchanges the data also to the Global Temperature and Salini
ty Profile Project (GTSPP). About 550 observations are generated by German SOOP ships
each year.
The BSH also operates the German contribution to the international Array for real-time geo-
strophic oceanography (ARGO) network. Long-term funding will be provided by the Federal
Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Affairs (BMVBS) to deploy 50 ARGO floats each
year. The focus of deployments will be the Atlantic Ocean, but if necessary other oceans
could be selected to maintain the global array. Deployment of the instruments is achieved in
co-operation with the research community using deployment opportunities during research
cruises. Data are transmitted in real-time to the international data centre CORIOLIS 14 . The
BSH provides quality control on the collected data according to the data management proce
dures developed in the ARGO programme and distributes the quality controlled data sets to
the international data centres.
The BSH maintains a net of 9 autonomous observation platforms in the North Sea and Baltic
Sea. The stations are regularly serviced and calibrated and data are transmitted in real-time
to the BSH. The parameters measured at the stations include meteorological measurements,
conducted by DWD.
The German contribution to the global references mooring network is distributed over several
research institutes. The AWI operates 24 individual long-term moorings which are part of the
OceanSites project. The locations of the moorings are in the Greenland Sea (1), the Fram
Strait (12), the Weddell Gyre along the Greenwich Meridian (5) and the Weddell Gyre proper
(6). The IfM-Geomar operates 4 moorings in the Labrador and Irminger Sea and one near
the Azores (K276) as part of the OceanSites project. Additional mooring activities of the IfM-
Geomar are focused on the tropical Atlantic where 5 moorings are going to be deployed for a
long-term period and 2 moorings further to the north. The IUP Bremen operates 4 integral
moorings in the sub-polar North Atlantic to estimate the Gulf Stream transport. Data from
these moorings will be available for climate research. A multidisciplinary mooring has been
