For decades, the WGOH has provided policy makers and the oceanographic community with information on the condition of the North Atlantic Ocean, summarizing trends in an annual Report on Ocean Climate that has been published since the late 1990s. The group relies on repeated long-term oceanographic sampling at key sites around the North Atlantic, Nordic Seas and adjacent shelf seas to summarize trends in regional hydrography and identify patterns linking these changes across the North Atlantic.
The working group continues a long tradition of international collaboration, bringing together physical oceanographers with regional expertise and a rich collection of ocean data to contribute to this annual assessment. While global ocean observation has evolved in the past decade, greatly increasing in volume and complexity, the WGOH and IROC continue to provide a key link between regional ocean monitoring, research, and actual policy advice.
Looking toward the future, the group has much to offer the growing Global Ocean Observing community, including a history of observations in key areas of the ocean and experience in meeting the needs of fisheries scientists. WGOH will continue to track key observational timeseries, stressing continuity and quality while working to incorporate these data into developing global observational efforts.
Read the article in Frontiers in Marine Science.
