Our climate is the result of many complex interactions of processes in the atmosphere, on land and in the ocean.

Our climate is the result of many complex interactions of processes in the atmosphere, on land and in the ocean. The oceans and atmosphere share the task of moving the excess solar heating from tropical regions towards the pole. Because of the enormous heat capacity of the ocean it has the ability to even out seasonal and year-to-year changes in our climate.

Although measurements in the atmosphere date back almost two centuries, records in the ocean barely span 50 years and are sparse in spatial coverage. The Argo project will be the first project ever to provide global measurements in the ocean that are vital to understanding and predicting climate change. The data are used with information from earth-observing satellites and ships as input for computer models of ocean circulation.

This will enable scientists to measure seasonal and year-to-year changes in the ocean and to detect changes in the ocean caused either by the global warming of the atmosphere or by the onset of climate events like El Nino.

Using the combination of ocean data, satellite measurements and models, scientists hope to be able to make long-term predictions about the Earth’s climate.