OBSERVING FOR CLIMATE SIGNALS IN THE INTRA-AMERICAS SEAS: A PAN REGIONAL APPROACH

Detecting and forecasting physical expressions of climate change as well as their impacts to ecosystems has become a high priority challenge to the global ocean observing community. The dynamic nature of coastal and ocean waters, in addition to the large range of pertinent spatial/temporal scales of said expressions demands optimizing the use of observing assets and strategic deployments. The interconnection between SECOORA, GCOOS, CARICOOS, arising from the North Equatorial Current, the Caribbean Current-Gulf Stream and Loop Current, predicate a pan-regional approach to optimizing an observing strategy for understanding oceanographic expressions of climate change in the Intra-Americas Seas. SECOORA, GCOOS, CARICOOS and their partners are currently codeveloping pan regional tools to forecast inundation by Sargassum. An analogous approach to further understanding and forecasting climate change expressions, such as ocean heat waves, using existing observing and modeling capabilities, including hurricane gliders, buoys, and temperature and salinity measurements from animal telemetry receiver arrays is currently being structured. Data from existing operational observing assets, missions and modeling products available at various temporal and spatial scales across the Intra-Americas Seas will be utilized to analyze key observational gaps critical to understanding ocean phenomena driving expressions of coastal climate change.