| Session Details | |
| Section | OS - Ocean Sciences |
| Session Title | Ocean Observing Systems in the Asia-Oceania Region – Identifying Gaps and Opportunities |
| Main Convener | Dr. Roger Proctor (University of Tasmania, Australia) |
| Co-convener(s) | Prof. Yang Ki Cho (Seoul National University, Korea, South) Prof. Peiliang Li (Ocean University of China, China) |
| Session Description | The Asia-Oceania ocean domain is vast and encompasses diverse regions from deep oceans to shallow interconnected islands. There are now many ocean observing networks in the Asia-Oceania region, developed for various purposes (e.g. tsunami warning, water quality monitoring, large marine ecosystems, climate change, etc.), at various stages of maturity, many of which are coordinated into GOOS Regional Alliances, for example, NEARGOOS, SEAGOOS, PI-GOOS, IMOS. The recent ‘Review of GOOS Regional Alliances Survey Final Report’ (http://imos.org.au/fileadmin/user_upload/shared/IMOS%20General/Partners/GOOS/FINAL-Study-Report-2015-10-30-v7.pdf) identifies gaps in observing systems in relation to both spatial/temporal coverage and multi-disciplinary aspects in most regional alliances and proposes some opportunities (pilot projects) to address them. Better coordination of ocean observing needs to be complemented by better coordination of data management and access to data. Several regional observing system projects and/or national data centres have information infrastructure to disseminate observations, both real-time and delayed mode, with differing levels of access and interoperability, for example the IMOS Ocean Portal (https://imos.aodn.org.au) provides free and open access to all the IMOS data collections. Better data discovery and access is also important for developing operational forecasting of both oceans and atmosphere, enabling observations for data assimilation and /or validation. This session will invite contributions that a) describe established and novel observing systems and data infrastructures in the Asia/Oceania region, b) that explore opportunities for strengthening the observing systems, both locally and regionally, and c) describe / explore opportunities for enhancing data interoperability and data dissemination. |