Sabrina SPEICH

The South Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (SAMOC) international initiative

Designing an effective ocean circulation observing strategy

The ocean's ability to absorb anthropogenic heat and CO2 and distribute it through its global circulation constitutes the core of the Earth's climate system and the major regulator of its changes. Apprehending its state and measuring its changes are therefore key elements to assess the state of the current and the future climate system. Unfortunately, the ocean is an environment that is still underdetermined and, if during the last two decades our knowledge of the surface ocean has progressed enormously, much remain to be done to quantitatively evaluate the ocean currents and properties (heat, salt, oxygen, carbon, nutrients) that they transport to all depths. The SAOMC international initiative is demostrating the feasibility and implementation of an effective and innovative ocean observing system. Numerical modeling studies carried out in parallel are allowing us to understand new phenomena. This initiative is contributing to the establishment of a very important international partnership which has led to an international agreement (The Bélem Accord), the implementation major European projects (H2020 AtlantOS and hopefully H2020 TRIATLAS) and major new implementation and integration of a fit-for-purpose South Atlantic observing Ssystem.