MERCATOR OCEAN JOURNA: 
SEPTEMBER 2021 
1. THE COPERNICUS MARINE SERVICE 
OCEAN STATE REPORT 
The development of the annual Copernicus Marine Service 
Ocean State Report is one of the priority tasks given by 
the EU Delegation Agreement for the Copernicus Marine 
Service implementation (CMEMS, 2014): «The preparation 
and release of annual Ocean State Reports, with clear 
schedule and content for an annual analysis describing the 
state of the global ocean and the European regional seas, 
in particular for supporting the Member States in their 
assessment obligations». The OSR activity was launched in 
2015 with the preparation of the first OSR (von Schuckmann 
et al., 2016). Currently, the Ocean State Report activity is in 
its 6th cycle of successful reporting of the state, variability 
and changes in the marine environment. 
Introduction & 
topical highlights 
New methods 
The key function of the OSR is to bring together insightful 
studies and updates (including indicators) in the form of a 
peer-reviewed publications compiled into an annual report 
The OSR is organized into 4 principal chapters (Figure 2): 
-chapter 1: state-of-the-art background information 
on Copernicus Marine Service activities focused on 
ocean reporting, synthesis of report outcomes, and 
solicited topical foci, 
-chapter 2: state-of-the-art science developments 
representing an advance in understanding of an 
important problem, 
chapter 3: science-based demonstrators at the 
interface between science and society with immediate, 
far-reaching implications, 
chapter 4: science-based reporting on changes in the 
ocean close to real time. 
The development of each report per cycle is organized 
through several steps which are shown in Figure 3. Each 
cycle of the OSR underlies a specific roadmap established 
to support the draft developments for chapters, as well as 
to support the author teams 
Societal & 
economic benefits 
Specific events 
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igure Z: Overview on the topical organization of the Copernicus Marine Service Ocean State Report into 4 principal chapters (see text 
for more details). Scientific topics cover the blue, white and green ocean, and range from information close to real time up to longer term 
s»hances.