Analysis of the global shipping traffic for the feasibility of a structural recovery program of Argo floats

The Argo observation network is made up of approximately 4,000 drifting floats, which provide valuable information about the ocean and its role in the climate system. Each one of these floats work in continuous cycles, until their batteries run out. Due to its importance in operational forecasting and climate research, the Argo community continually assesses the status of the sensors mounted on each of the floats. Recovering floats would offer a great opportunity to gain insight into sensor performance and stability, although the economic and environmental costs of dedicating a ship exclusively to recover Argo floats make it unsustainable. In this work, the potential of world shipping traffic as float retrievers has been evaluated through an analysis of encounters based on the Automatic Identification System (AIS) of ships and the location of Argo floats in the years 2019 and 2020. About 18,500 and 28,500 encounters happened for both years, respectively. The Mediterranean Sea hosted the most encounters, and fishing ships were the most suitable type of ship aimed for potential recoveries. A total of 298 and 373 floats interacted with the world shipping traffic in favorable weather conditions in 2019 and 2020, respectively, a figure equivalent to 25% of the annual replacement rate of the Argo network. The same approach was applied to 677 floats affected by abrupt salinity drift (ASD), an issue that has recently come to the attention of the Argo community. It turned out that 59 and 103 ASD-affected floats interacted with ships of opportunity in both years

Deploying ARGO floats in the Barcelona World Race

While most Argo floats are naturally deployed by research vessels, a growing number of float operations has been allocated to the sailing community, through ship-based non-governmental organization NGOs or trans-oceanic races in the last few years. The aim is to establish win-win partnerships, with Argo floats being deployed in poorly sampled areas without regular shipping, and to get sailors genuinely involved in oceanographic science activities. In the case of big events, it is also an opportunity for Argo to benefit from broad media coverage, and for the organizers, a chance to display a scientific impact of their projects. Thanks to joint forces of The Coriolis Deployment Team and the IOC-UNESCO/WMO support centre JCOMMOPS, both hosted by Ifremer in Brest, the beginning of 2015 saw probably the so far largest event of that kind, with the deployment of one Argo float by all of the eight crews participating in the Barcelona World Race. In coordination with Coriolis and JCOMMOPS, the race management gave the green light for “Argo day” on the 23rd of January, and eight floats were successfully deployed in the Atlantic Ocean between 24° and 44° south

Best practices for Core Argo floats: Getting started, physical handling, metadata, and data considerations. Version 1. [GOOS ENDORSED PRACTICE]

Argo floats have been deployed in the global ocean for over 20 years. The Core mission of the Argo program (Core Argo) has contributed well over 2 million profiles of salinity and temperature of the upper 2000 m for a variety of operational and scientific applications. Core Argo floats have evolved such that the program currently consists of more than eight types of Core Argo float, some of which belong to second or third generation developments, three unique satellite communication systems and two types of Conductivity, Temperature and Depth (CTD) sensor systems. Coupled with a well-established data management system, with delayed mode quality control, makes for a very successful ocean observing network. Here we present the Best Practices for Core Argo floats in terms of float types, physical handling and deployments, recommended metadata parameters and the data management system. The objective is to encourage new and developing scientists, research teams and institutions to contribute to the OneArgo Program, specifically to the Core Argo mission. Only by leveraging sustained contributions of current Core Argo float groups with new and emerging Argo teams and users, can the OneArgo initiative be realised. This paper makes involvement with the Core Argo mission smoother by providing a framework endorsed by a wide community for these observations

National Strategy for Argo Global Network Profiling floats Deployments of Opportunity

To ensure the maintenance of the international OneArgo network (Roemmich et al., 2019) of autonomous profiling float (www.argo.net), France is committed to contribute to deploy a significant part of the global network (around 10%). The profiling floats of the Argo France program are funded by Ifremer and SHOM, supported by the French “Ministère de l’Enseignement Supérieur, de la Recherche et de l’Innovation'' funding via the “Très Grande Infrastructure de recherche” (IR*), “Contrat de Plan État-Région” (CPER), PIAs projects such as Equipex NAOS or Equipex+ Argo2030, and CNES. These purchases are part of the Coriolis inter-agency partnership. Between 50 and 70 T/S type profiling floats, so called “Core Argo” (Temperature/Salinity), T/S/DO (Dissolved Oxygen), Deep (“Deep Argo”) and BGC (Biogeochemical, “BGC Argo”) are purchased each year. A special feature of the Argo-France program is that these profiling floats are then made available to the national scientific community via the annual call for scientific proposal in the INSU/CNRS's LEFE/GMMC framework. Profiling floats that are not assigned to scientific teams as part of this call are deployed via opportunity campaigns by the Coriolis Deployment (CODEP) team

Bilan Argo France 2022

Ce document n’est pas un compte rendu d’activités exhaustif du programme Argo-France mais un bilan et une liste des faits marquants du programme pour l’année 2022. Des informations complémentaires sont disponibles dans le rapport AST 24 (20-24 Mars 2023, Halifax, Canada)

Plan d'Actvité Argo France 2023

Plan d'Activité prévisionnel de Argo France en 202