GO-SHIP: A Global Vision for Decadal Ocean Monitoring

Global ship-based programs, with highly accurate, full-water column physical and biogeochemical observations repeated each decade since the 1970s, provide a crucial resource for documenting ocean change. The ocean, a central component of Earth’s climate system, is taking up most of Earth’s excess anthropogenic heat. About 19% of this excess in the abyssal ocean beneath 2,000 m, dominated by Southern Ocean warming. The ocean also has taken up about a quarter of anthropogenic carbon, resulting in acidification of the upper ocean. Increased stratification has resulted in a decline in oxygen and increase in nutrients in the Northern Hemisphere thermocline and an expansion of tropical oxygen minimum zones. Southern Hemisphere thermocline oxygen increased in the 2000s owing to stronger wind forcing and ventilation. Ship-based measurements also show that vertical diffusivity increases from a minimum in the thermocline to a maximum within the bottom 1,500 m, shifting our physical paradigm of the ocean’s overturning circulation.

The Global Ocean Ship-based Hydrographic Investigation Program (GO-SHIP) is a long-term, international effort committed to providing high-quality, full-water column oceanographic observations on a decadal timescale. GO-SHIP aims to collect essential in-situ observations of physical and biogeochemical ocean climate components, complementing and underpinning other observational strategies, providing a reference data set for the Ocean Observing System. A documented set of Best Practices forms the basis of GO-SHIP observing. These data provide a unique, long-term record of ocean variability, enabling scientists to track changes in temperature, salinity, oxygen, nutrients, and carbon content, especially in the deep ocean. By monitoring key parameters and covering vast ocean basins, the program seeks to initialize, validate and constrain model estimates of the ocean's current state and improve projections of Earth's climate. The program's core mission is to deliver global measurements of the highest accuracy, covering the ocean basins from coast to coast and top to bottom, with decadal resolution. New measurements, such as genomics, transcriptomics, plankton imaging, and particle chemistry are also being incorporated into the nascent BioGO-SHIP program. This integration of biological and physical-chemical data will deepen our understanding of marine ecosystems and their response to climate change. By continuing to collect and disseminate high-quality oceanographic data, GO-SHIP plays a vital role in advancing ocean science and informing climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies.

GO-SHIP’s open data policies ensure rapid and widespread data access, enabling scientists to conduct cutting-edge research. The program actively promotes scientific training and leadership development, providing opportunities for graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and early-career scientists to participate in cruises and engage in data analysis.

By continuing to collect and disseminate high-quality oceanographic data, GO-SHIP plays a vital role in advancing ocean science and informing climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies.