The Argo network is a global array of autonomous instruments, deployed over the world ocean, reporting subsurface ocean properties to a wide range of users via satellite transmission links to data centres. Argo measures temperature and salinity over the upper 2000 m of the ocean. These two essential climate variables describe the oceans’ physical and thermodynamic state. The Argo array is thus an indispensable component of the Global Ocean Observing System required to understand and monitor the role of the ocean in the Earth’s climate system, in particular the heat and water balance.
The sampling characteristics allow for the first time the resolution of seasonal and inter-annual variability of the global ocean circulation. Through Argo the systematic estimation of the heat and fresh water budgets (storage, transport, and atmospheric fluxes) is now possible. Argo is strongly complementary to satellite observations; to use a meteorological analogy, satellite altimetry provides the equivalent of the atmospheric surface pressure field and Argo profiles are the equivalent of the radiosonde network.
Argo Float Cycle
The Argo data are readily assimilated with those from satellites into ocean circulation and climate models, in support of research and operational applications. The proposed contribution to the Argo array is integrated into the GMES and the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS).
2007 was the first year in which Ireland became a member of the Argo programme and a partner in the Euro Argo PP. Twelve floats were procured through a European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) grant, four of which were deployed in March 2008 from the RV Thalassa.
Members of the Marine Climate Change team in the Marine Institute deploying Argro floats in the Rockall Trough, March 2008.
Float locations and temperature and salinity profiles can be viewed in the Operational Oceanography section of the website. The performance of the Marine Institute's Northeast Atlantic Operational Model is routinely validated against real-world measurements (Argo float CTD profiles and satellite microwave sea surface temperature (SST) data.
This infrastructure has been funded under the Marine RTDI Measure of the National Development Plan 2000-2006, co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).
