The Argo Program : present and future

Author Posting. © The Oceanography Society, 2017. This article is posted here by permission of The Oceanography Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Oceanography 30, no. 2 (2017): 18–28, doi:10.5670/oceanog.2017.213.The Argo Program has revolutionized large-scale physical oceanography through its contributions to basic research, national and international climate assessment, education, and ocean state estimation and forecasting. This article discusses the present status of Argo and enhancements that are underway. Extensions of the array into seasonally ice-covered regions and marginal seas as well as increased numbers of floats along the equator and around western boundary current extensions have been proposed. In addition, conventional Argo floats, with their 2,000 m sampling limit, currently observe only the upper half of the open ocean volume. Recent advances in profiling float technology and in the accuracy and stability of float-mounted conductivity-temperature-depth sensors make it practical to obtain measurements to 6,000 m. The Deep Argo array will help observe and constrain the global budgets of heat content, freshwater, and steric sea level, as well as the full-depth ocean circulation. Finally, another extension to the Argo Program is the addition of a diverse set of chemical sensors to profiling floats in order to build a Biogeochemical-Argo array to understand the carbon cycle, the biological pump, and ocean acidification.S.R.J. was supported by US Argo Program through NOAA Grant NA14OAR4320158 (CINAR). D.R. and N.Z. were supported by the US Argo Program through NOAA Grant NA10OAR4310139 (CIMEC). S.C.R. was supported by the US Argo Program through NOAA Grants NAOAR4320063 and NA16OAR4310161 (JISAO). K.S.J. was supported by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and by the Southern Ocean Carbon and Climate Observations and Modeling (SOCCOM) Project funded by National Science Foundation, Division of Polar Programs (NSF PLR-1425989). G.C.J. is supported by the Ocean Observations and Monitoring Division, Climate Program Office, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), US Department of Commerce and NOAA Research

Atlantic Ocean Observing Networks: Cost and feasibility study

Results of a cost and feasibility study of the present and planned integrated Atlantic Ocean Observing System, including assessing the readiness and feasibility of implementation of different observing technologie

International genome-wide meta-analysis identifies new primary biliary cirrhosis risk loci and targetable pathogenic pathways.

Primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC) is a classical autoimmune liver disease for which effective immunomodulatory therapy is lacking. Here we perform meta-analyses of discovery data sets from genome-wide association studies of European subjects (n=2,764 cases and 10,475 controls) followed by validation genotyping in an independent cohort (n=3,716 cases and 4,261 controls). We discover and validate six previously unknown risk loci for PBC (Pcombined<5 × 10(-8)) and used pathway analysis to identify JAK-STAT/IL12/IL27 signalling and cytokine-cytokine pathways, for which relevant therapies exist

Ozone in the boundary layer of the equatorial Pacific Ocean.

Shipboard (~7 m) ozone measurements made in the equatorial Pacific Ocean between 20°N and 17°S and 140°-160°W confirm the existence of a distinct ozone minimum in the vicinity of the equator in the late spring, its decline in the summer, and its absence in autumn. This minimum could not be correlated with high biological activity in surface waters. Coincident aircraft measurements of ozone from near sea surface (50-100m) to 2 km in altitude were made along 150°W at stations at 10°N, 0°, 5° and 12°S in May-June 1984. Aircraft data identified the existence of a distinct ozone maximum between the lifting condensation level (LCL) or cloud base (Zb) and the trade wind inversion, with ozone mixing ratios amounting to 2-2.5 times the ozone levels in the well-mixed subcloud layer. A gradient of decreasing ozone with decreasing altitude extended from the LCL (or Zb) to the near-surface superadiabatic region but did not include it

Cadmium, copper and zinc interactions with marine humus as a function of ligand structure.

The interactions in seawater of cadmium, copper, and zinc with natural levels of marine humus (fulvic and humic acids) were studied using differential pulse anodic stripping voltammetry (DPASV). Interactions with Cu were also examined by ultraviolet spectrophotometry. The degree of interaction relates to the structure of the particular fulvic or humic acid tested. Marine fulvic and humic acids with different equivalent weights and varying degrees of aromaticity and heteroatom substitution were tested to assess the relative importance of these fundamental structural features in determining the degree of interaction. An index of heteroatom substitution, derived from proton magnetic resonance spectra of these materials, when combined with equivalent weights correlated with the nature and degree of metal interaction. Both marine fulvic and humic acids appreciably interacted with Zn. In contrast, the extent of interaction of fulvic acids with Cu appears to be related to their structure while humic acids appear to interact with Cu regardless of structure. Cadmium interacts only with mature, highly crosslinked humic acids