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Published online 5 December 2007 | Nature 450, 780-781 (2007) | doi:10.1038/450780a

News Feature

Earth Monitoring: Observing the ocean from within

Quirin Schiermeier

As names go, it's cleverer than most. At the mundane level, Argo stands for Array for Real-time Geostrophic Oceanography.

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  • As a point of clarification. The name Argo is not an acronym for Array for Real-time Geostrophic Oceanography. The acronym originated in 1998 when two position papers were prepared " A Proposal for Global Ocean Observations for Climate: the Array for Real-time Geostrophic Oceanography (ARGO)" by Dean Roemmich, Scripps Insitution of Oceanography, and " A program for Global Ocean SAlinity MonitORing (GOSAMOR)" by Ray Schmitt, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. The acronym ARGO has not been used since then. These position papers formed the basis of the present Argo plan formulated by the Argo Science team in 1998 in which they state :- "The name Argo was chosen because of the projected strong complementarity between this float project and the Jason-1 altimetric mission. Jason and Argo provide a powerful synergy: regular global sea surface heights together with the subsurface measurements provide information that is critical for the determination of the ocean circulation and its physical state". Further information on Argo can be found at http://www.argo.ucsd.edu John Gould

    • 06 Dec, 2007
    • Posted by: John Gould