In humanity’s struggle to achieve sustainable development and use of the Earth’s resources, the sciences are increasingly called upon to provide specific information ‘products’ that address specific needs.  With respect to the global marine environment, these products include ocean observations, measurements, and data that can be used by governments, industries and scientists to assess, understand, forecast and manage trends in the global ocean-atmospheric system.  Examples of these products include:

• Sea level measurements

• Details of currents
• Size, location and travel of sea ice and waves
• Tsunami monitoring
• Data on living marine resources (population, recruitment, mortality, etc)
• Measurements of coastal attributes (erosion, flooding, etc)
• Monitoring of the health of the oceans (pollution, eutrophication, HABs, etc)
• Data on non-living resources (oil, gas, etc)

This represents a shift in the purpose of oceanographic research from that of general enhancement of knowledge to the application of knowledge and technology to the understanding of the dynamic relationships between the different elements that comprise the global ocean-atmosphere system, and how this system affects and is affected by human activities.  Furthermore, understanding these dynamics in the current context of global climate change complicates the challenges of oceanographic assessment, and marks it with an urgency resulting from the uncertainty that surrounds the consequences of global warming.

The development data and information that meets the needs of marine resource users is called operational oceanography, and the production of this data and information requires a global, coordinated, interdisciplinary, observing and monitoring system.  The IOC has developed and is continuously implementing such a system – the Global Oceans Observing System (GOOS). Currently, standard GOOS products include regular measurements of: wave height and direction, salinity, sea surface temperatures, wind velocity, currents and tides. However, GOOS is being further developed to be able to monitor and forecast: indicators of marine pollution and contamination, movement of oil slicks, prediction of water quality, concentrations of nutrients, primary productivity, subsurface currents, temperature and salinity profiles, sediment transport and erosion (Oceans 2020, 2002). Finally, GOOS provides information products that are of critical importance to all of the issues the IOC is concerned with – coastal area management, marine environmental protection, disaster mitigation, fisheries and ecosystems, climate change and information management strategies.