Argo profiling floats bring new era of in situ ocean observations

The Argo profiling float project will enable, for the first time, continuous global observations of the temperature, salinity, and velocity of the upper ocean in near-real time.This new capability will improve our understanding of the ocean's role in climate, as well as spawn an enormous range of valuable ocean applications. Because over 90% of the observed increase in heat content of the air/land/sea climate system over the past 50 years occurred in the ocean [Leuitus et al., 2001], Argo will effectively monitor the pulse of the global heat balance.The end of 2003 was marked by two significant events for Argo. In mid-November 2003, over 200 scientists from 22 countries met at Argo's first science workshop to discuss early results from the floats. Two weeks later, Argo had 1000 profiling floats—one-third of the target total—delivering data. As of 7 May that total was 1171.