CHIDONG ZHANG: --talk it's given by Meghan Cronin, of Ocean Climate Station. 

MEGHAN CRONIN: Hi, thank you. I'm Meghan Cronin, I lead the Ocean Climate Station group, and I'll be talking about PMEL's contribution to the global efforts of OceanSites reference stations. So OceanSites are long term fixed time series stations. And while 18 countries contribute surface and subsurface moorings to this network, the vast majority of surface moorings within the OceanSites network have been initiated by PMEL. Likewise, the vast majority of surface CO2 flux systems within the OceanSites networks have been initiated by PMEL. And as I'll show you, OceanSites are hubs for process studies, including at KEO and Papa, both of which were initiated during process studies. 

So KEO, KEO is the Kuroshio Extension Observatory, and it was initiated in 2004. It's part of the Kuroshio Extension System Study test. And since then, Japan has had two hot spot climate studies, focused on the ocean influence on weather and climate and the biophysical interactions. Like other western boundary current systems, KEO experiences very large surface ocean heat loss during the winter, and heat gain during the summer. And that means that experiences a wide range of variability, making it a very excellent site for doing heat comparisons against satellite and model products. 

And so just in the last five years, we've had 24 bias assessment studies, using data published-- using data from KEO. But I want to highlight that KEO it's actually a typhoon buoy. During the typhoon season, we get hit by typhoons or have near hits every two weeks. And the KEO data has provided insights into the ocean response to typhoons and their transitions to extra tropical storms. 

Papa, here in the Northeast Pacific, was also initiated during an NSF funded process study in 2007. But of course, Papa itself was initiated 70 years ago, in December 1949, as part of the ocean weather ship program. 

With help from NOAA, PMEL engineers in 2010. Jim Thompson from UW Applied Physics Laboratory deployed one of the first deep water wave prior warnings. And you can see from this nine year record that, in the winter, 10 meter waves are common. But the climatology is changing, and station Papa was at ground zero during The Blob marine heatwave. 

Now looking globally here, we see that, in fact, there's only a handful of OceanSites moorings that have measured the full net surface heat flux. I was a part of an OceanOb, actually I lead an OceanOb strategy community-- community strategy paper, for how to improve air-sea fluxes globally over the next decade to meet the needs of researchers and stakeholders. 

And one recommendation is that we expand, we can add enhancements to some of the existing moorings, to measure net surface heat fluxes. And through TPOS 2020, we will get many more net surface heat fluxes in the tropical Pacific which is a key region for monitoring and picking [INAUDIBLE]. But there's other regions also that need reference station moorings. And with new mobile and drifting flux platform technology, it will be able to get global coverage. 

This global institute flux array is needed for optimizing satellite observations for the boundary layer. We envision that this global in situ array [INAUDIBLE] array will be multidisciplinary, multifunctional. And that together with the satellites, it will form integrated surface ocean observing system. My group--the Ocean Climate Station group at PMEL are working to make this vision a reality, and please visit our website. Thank you. 

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