Argo Status & issues for ADMT Argo TC ADMT#13 November 2012, Hyderabad

2 12 nations maintain the global array and 20 more fill regional gaps 18 countries active in 2012 Argo has been sustaining a 3000 floats array for 4 years and is starting improving it…

3 However more international cooperation is required! 50+% maintained by the USA … Growing involvement of Europe is crucial Argo should be promoted further in Russia, Mexico, Indonesia, Turkey, Taiwan … All these countries have already cooperated. New commitments for 2013: Brazil (2 prog.), Iran, Taiwan Sri Lanka (redeployed a Chinese float)

After a drop around 2010, Argo was back to its target in 2011 we can be very optimistic for Time to expand our “Core Argo” to the “Global” (AST#13) What would be the number for a “Global Argo” 3° x 3° ?  New global index ? Regional indexes ? Deep Argo indexes ?  Refined “Customer” requirements (e.g. Mercator)  See ASW#4 report

5 If we consider a global coverage and remove those floats, Core Argo: new definition …

6 If we consider profiles pressure >1750 dbar Core Argo: new definition …

7 75 % of the array is meeting requirements (beyond spatial distribution) We obtain a new « Argo core » value (target remains to be defined) Challenge is still forward…

But there is still the 2009 deployments deficit to address It may require a couple more years 8 Challenging Areas: S.O. North West I.O. Large parts of the P.O.

Challenge in logistics is still impressing ….

11 A large part of the Pacific Ocean will need to be covered within a couple of years as well as the W Atlantic and NE/W Indian and SO How optimize the network coverage now ?

12 … and tomorrow ?

13 How the Argo teams are going to fill the gaps ? Deployment opportunities ? Dedicated opportunities and funding required see e.g. Karahoa, Lady Amber & partnerships with Industry, Sailing, Foundations, NGOs (VSF), etc. New JCOMMOPS Ship Coordinator (official Nov. 19 th ) SOT (VOS, SOOP, GOSHIP) TC

14 A good diversity of float models and manufacturers ( 7 commercial) 2/3 of the market is handled by Teledyne Improving reliability Warning for low cost instruments …

15 Iridium used on ¼ of 2011 deployments, probably 40% in 2012 Diversity is important …

Argo Data Stream: All profiles th profile early Nov profile every 5-6 minute … 16 The difference GDACS/GTS profiles is rather stable (around 20% every year). If a number of profiles cannot be inserted on GTS because floats are greylisted, or floats data are released lately, we can still optimize GTS distribution volume by 10%. An effort on the processing of first profiles in time (with pre registration done, decoders tested, etc) will help.

th profile float 17 Many ways to count profiles and counting may change everyday AIC countdown to AST: ordering profiles from the registered floats by obs. date Homage to ADMT13 host India. By the way, a few dots on land …

DM Status (see specific agenda item and AIC report for details) 18 DM/DM Eligible 03/2010:76% 03/2011:83% 03/2012:82% 11/2012:80% Only 6% are not under control

19 Remark: Argo/Argo eq. is a small and stable fraction of the array (10%). To keep in mind for RT/DM data processing.

Float pending at AIC (74): a bit high Floats (iridium tracking/decoding issues) Float not yet registered at AIC (21): reasonable BSH, KORDI, Coriolis (DEEP_ARVOR), WHOI, PMEL, UK, UW Float not yet on GTS (186): too high INCOIS, BSH and NAVO Float not yet at GDACS (51): usual Many BSH floats (Coriolis) RT Issues

Why important to study ? Meet operational requirements (24h) Optimize and harmonize data flow and DAC practices Detect errors, issues, failures, blocking points in data processing chains  See ISDM agenda item for GTS  See AIC dedicated report for DACs/GDACs Effort to be continued, with DAC feedback stats to be refined Delays

Delays at GDACs: Where are we now? Not too bad … but still room for progress

23 Delays at GDACs over 2012

24 Delays at GDACs over 2012 A large number of files is resubmitted in delayed-mode Processing/Decoding new floats, or eq. floats impact delays (see diagonals) Green dots show real-time profiles General and impressive improvement over 2 nd half of 2012? GDAC improvement ? GDAC should not update GDAC_CREATION_DATE in index when DM file is submitted (?) Strange gap around Feb. 11th (CLS ?) See all DACs details in report and feedback if needed

The Delays observed at GDACs have improved substantially in the second half of 2012 through a combined effort at DACs and GDAC level. There is some room for progress for a few DACs There are too much late submissions of profiles. If median value (29h) is reasonable, only 36% of observations are distributed to users within 24h. This impacts in particular large areas of the oceans. Cooperation between national DACs and redundancy are encouraged Cooperation (processing chains, decoders) between DACs is encouraged (see CSIRO and INCOIS, KORDI) Float STANDARD_FORMAT_ID to circulate before deployment, as well as data samples for testing A number of processing steps are launched at different time, with rough offsets, which introduce small delays. They should rather be chained. It would be good to set up a RT raw data delivery from Argos (see Coriolis recent practice) coupled to a RT processing chain. Special floats (NOVA, NEMO, etc) requesting preprocessing steps should be monitored in detail and optimized if needed, or integrated to existing chains. AIC capacity to generate metafiles from notification step (and FTP to GDACs if needed) or use metafiles for notification will help (from PIs or GDACs). PI notification to DAC and AIC should happen at same time. Automatic crawling/upload systems would be best.. Report conclusions

The number of countries involved in Argo is good but not sufficient. Argo would be impacted immediately if USA has difficulties There is still room for a few more big players deficit is still not solved. Resources required for ship time, and organization? Need to plan big deployment batches (efficient) and flexible cruises We need better indexes to track Argo network(s) progress Delays in data availability at the GDACs have been partially solved. AIC survey of DACs practices should be continued. Float lifetime keeps improving. Beware of low cost instrumentation! New generation of telecoms seems ready on all float models. Groups experiencing. Needs to be more operational and centralized. Conclusion

Data flow can be improved from deployment to final formatting –Too many discontinuous steps –Too many human interventions Better delays, more data shared in RT deployment planning information management (between PIs, AIC, DACs) should flow machine to machine (interoperability) Sharing same vocabulary on metadata everywhere, and introducing the STANDARD_FORMAT_ID as soon as possible in the data flow is crucial (see Esmee agenda item) Why not introduce our WMO ID at manufacturer level (PMEL proposal) ? Conclusion

Is our FTP/netCDF based data exchange format optimized ? Short/medium term ncISO ? See agenda item on (ACDD and CF conventions) Will we do all changes required? (pressure from NOAA) US NODC to make another Argo netCDF ? Should we start preparing the next generation today after a decade of good services? Is our GDAC “mirroring” optimal ? What is the size of our user community ? 500 users/day ? How to expand it outside the Argo community? These issues should be debated openly and long run anticipated Questions

Workshop on data access, data use, data display from a technical perspective targeting interoperability, monitoring, outreach, education, etc. Many tools, software available (desktop, web, GIS, etc) Private and external actors coming to fill up gaps Some limitation with growing data set have to be anticipated And new tools prepared for the future –Aside an ADMT meeting e.g. –Or separately (JCOMMOPS offers) Suggestion

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