SAN DIEGO, Oct. 30 An international project co-led by the United States that will allow scientists to simultaneously monitor all of the world's oceans is nearing completion.
The Argo project involves an array of instruments -- many built at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California-San Diego -- that have been deployed in the Earth's oceans during the past eight years.
The network of sensor-bearing floats measures ocean temperature, salinity and velocity to a degree never before possible, researchers said.
The Argo Steering Team, the international panel of scientists managing the network, said Argo will reach its full deployment of 3,000 units Thursday, meaning data from every ocean in the world will be available with average coverage of one sensor per 3 degrees latitude and longitude.
The accomplishment will culminate one phase of a project that has involved 41 nations.
"The climate science objectives that drive the Argo array require that we observe the global oceans indefinitely," said Dean Roemmich, a physical oceanographer at Scripps and co-chairman of the Argo program, "so achieving the global array is merely the beginning of the observation period."
Copyright 2007 by UPI
