Ship Observations Team:
Ship Observations Team Merged from 3 panels:
Volunteer Observing Ship (VOS) surface observations,
Ship of Opportunity Programme (SOOP) XBT observations,
Automated Shipboard ASAP
meet every 18 months - 2 years
VOS points of relevance to OOPC:
VOS points of relevance to OOPC VOS recruitment
VOSclim recruitment
a priority for met services?
Ship position information and security issues
some ships have been lost
‘stealth mode’, but data is lost
WMO publication 47 - metadata
target both WMO Sec. and VOS operators
SOOP points of relevance to OOPC:
SOOP points of relevance to OOPC Identified focal points for recruitment efforts for undersampled lines (but an ongoing problem)
Valparaiso-New Zealand and -California no longer possible
PX11 (Flores Sea-Japan) resource issue for Australia
JCOMMOPS to improve reporting of total number of XBTs, separating identified lines from other drops
Asked OOPC for clarification on FRX E-W vs N-S line requirements (5° for E-W, 150 km for N-S)
Are ready to respond to updated line requirements identified by OOPC/CLIVAR
General SOT points:
General SOT points draft standard design for ship science area completed
requires further input from particularly non-physical observing community
strategy to bring this to ship-builders / IMO
ongoing efforts to identify buoy deployment opportunities