Global Oceans

Arctic research programthe sasx arctic baseline project is an initiative under development that proposes to charter commercial sector icebreaking vessels and other platforms, mobilize the vessels for scientific research with modular science workspace systems, and to host an internationally-supported annual series of research expeditions over the next 10 years. The expeditions are designed to replicate and extend on a seasonal basis selected core datasets obtained from national icebreaking research vessels participating in the recently completed, single-year international synoptic arctic survey (sas). Sasx will add value to sas ocean data by adding a time-series dimension to the one-year sas "snapshot" of arctic conditions, to capture annual change at greater resolution, reflecting the fact that the arctic is changing more rapidly than other regions on earth. Global oceans' ability to charter and scientifically mobilize icebreaking vessels on a demand basis for the project enables an intensive annual capacity to extend these datasets that would be difficult or impossible to schedule with dedicated national research vessels.

Regional science consortia programglobal oceans is working with scientists and institutions in the indo-pacific region, and with intergovernmental bodies, to develop expedition projects in the indian ocean and wider indo-pacific that will enable collaboration and cost sharing. Programs in development include an annual indian ocean trasect (aiot) project that will expand oceanographic measurements in this understudied region. This project is also working with the ioc and regional national science organizations to develop new hands-on oceanographic field training curricula for students and early career scientists in the region that will be hosted by global oceans on aiot expeditions.

Atmospheric science programthe atmospheric instrumentation suite (ais) project is a new scientific infrastructure and program management proposal developed by global oceans and argonne national laboratory, a government-contracted laboratory of the us department of energy (doe). Joint ownership and management is proposed to build and operate a series of mobile atmospheric observatories certified for installation on ships. This project will expand capacity for atmospheric observations over the world's oceans, which current represents a significant gap in ground-based observations, especially for climate modeling. The project will benefit from global oceans' marv vessel model, including use of chartered polar icebreakers in the arctic ocean, to host the ais systems. As a nongovernmental, nonprofit, international project, these new observatories will expand scientific capacity in a way that is flexible and globally collaborative.