GO-BGC’s status and the future of ocean observing

A bitter-sweet achievement: GO-BGC established a global BGC Argo array — but faces an uncertain future

Wednesday, Sept. 23 at 10 am PT / 1 pm ET

The Global Ocean Biogeochemistry Array (GO-BGC) is a NSF supported Mid-Scale Research Infrastructure 2 project funded in 2020 to deploy 500 BGC profiling floats worldwide to establish the initial US contribution for the global BGC-Argo array. The team has nearly achieved this goal, with over 460 BGC-Argo operating through GO-BGC, and the remaining floats will be deployed over the next several months.

This unprecedented, new global array of BGC floats illuminates biogeochemistry in the ocean’s interior at global scale and in real time. It allows us to resolve biogeochemical processes on seasonal to interannual timescales for the global ocean, and has enabled a plethora of new scientific applications, many of which were covered in this webinar series. However, the GO-BGC project will conclude at the end of 2026, with no prospect for continued funding at present. Deployments of GO-BGC floats will end, and the global array will start to decay, compromising the array’s unique ability to provide “live” observations of fundamental marine biogeochemical parameters at a time when the ocean is rapidly changing.

In this webinar, we will provide an overview of the mission of GO-BGC and its major accomplishments over the past 6 years with a focus on overlap with the goals of the NSF Ocean Science Decadal Surveys and US science priorities. Then, we will discuss the implications for the conclusion of the GO-BGC project with no additional funding to continue BGC-Argo deployments. Finally, we will facilitate a community discussion/Q&A in the context of the NSF’s Dear Colleague Letter for ocean observing priorities. We encourage participants to come prepared with questions or discussion topics.