Consistent, standardized measurement of a wide range of high-resolution atmospheric measurements over the world’s oceans is crucial for developing improved climate models, which are currently constrained by data gaps – especially over the Arctic Ocean, yet ship-certified atmospheric observation facilities are few and are limited in their availability.

To expand this capacity, Global Oceans and a developing AOO Science Consortium of academic institutions, government agencies, and intergovernmental bodies are collaborating to design, fund, and build a new multi-modular facility called the Atmospheric Ocean Observatory (AOO) for global deployment on Global Oceans MARV and PolarMARV vessels. The AOO will be a nongovernmental, nonprofit facility to be funded through private philanthropy and operated on behalf of the global science community.

This new initiative will enable more flexible, frequent, and globally collaborative atmospheric measurements worldwide, with a particular focus in two areas: mobilization in the Arctic Ocean to generate high-resolution data for improving global climate models; and deployment in the Indian Ocean and Indo-Pacific region to support improved modeling of the poorly understood annual Asian Monsoons, which impact nearly a third of the global population.

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