Argo programme of ocean floats
Programa Argo de flotadores oceánicos
- Date
- 2000 (primeros flotadores en 1999; red completa en 2007) · confidence high
- Place
- Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, California, United States
- Credited to
- International Argo consortium (Scripps, WHOI, among others)
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
What it is
A network of some three thousand autonomous floats that dive to two thousand metres every ten days and measure ocean temperature and salinity. It gave the first near-continuous view of the sea's interior and its warming.
The float design is earlier (1990s, the ALACE project); the programme arose from a collective effort of over thirty countries, so it is not attributed to a single institution.
What it led to
- direct measurement of ocean heat content and climate change
- data for seasonal forecasting and climate models