GENEVA / PARIS, Nov 28 (IPS) – At their recent Leaders’ Summit in Rio de Janeiro, the G20 committed to support developing countries in responding to global problems and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). To meet that promise, the world’s leading economies need to improve global cooperation and investment in ocean forecasting systems and technology.
As we highlight in UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (UNESCO-IOC) 2024 State of the Ocean Report, this is key to both addressing climate change and closing the gaps currently hindering progress on many of the SDGs.
Strengthening the capacity of under-resourced countries to improve ocean monitoring and forecasting is essential to protect people from the impacts of sea change.
Sea levels are rising and will accelerate in the future, driven by unprecedented ocean warming and melting glaciers, including the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets. Not only do we need climate action, but—with the ocean containing 40 times more carbon than the atmosphere—we need to expand our understanding of how proposed climate solutions will interact with the ocean’s carbon cycle and ecosystem, and the risks and benefits that come with it. .
In fact, observations and predictions of physical, chemical and biological ocean changes should be the basis for all ongoing development decisions. Fortunately, new technologies and networks mean that our monitoring and forecasting capabilities are increasing, but not fast enough and not in all parts of the ocean.
After four decades of investment, ocean forecasting systems have matured and can now provide accurate forecasts. However, persistent gaps remain, both geographically—especially in the Southern Hemisphere, northern regions, and islands—and in critical areas where more ocean information is needed to improve our predictions of extreme weather, coastal hazards, marine biodiversity, and oceans. health.
There is an increasingly urgent need to fill these missing links to allow us to adapt to change, predict and manage risk, develop accurate future climate models, and accelerate sustainable economic growth—including clean ocean energy technologies.
To date, the Global Ocean Observing System has more than 8,000 observation platforms, operated by 84 countries through 16 global networks and many biological and environmental observation systems, and delivers more than 120,000 observations to applications every day.
However, in order to address global challenges and inequalities, the spatial and temporal gaps in the oceans must be addressed, especially those related to the three interlinked planetary challenges of climate, biodiversity and global pollution. That will require recognition of the Global Ocean Observing System as a critical infrastructure and greater cooperation to support data reporting and access.
Free and open access to data should be guaranteed as a prerequisite for equitable global sharing of data and information. Supporting this will help G20 States to reduce asymmetries in science, technology, and innovation; one of the inequalities that the Summit of Leaders declared to be the root of all the world’s challenges.
To improve data access and interoperability, a global effort coordinated by the International Oceanographic Data and Information Exchange (IODE) has established a network of 101 data centers in 68 countries. Further expansion of this integrated IOC Data Architecture, including the development of the UNESCO-IOC Ocean InfoHub Project and the new Ocean Data and Information System (ODIS), will create a more unified data delivery infrastructure and continue to support information accessibility as part of action under of SDG14. .
It is very concerning that, despite technological advances, a combination of inflation and overall national funding means that there has been no significant growth in ocean surveillance over the past five years. Another area that needs urgent attention is the development of global, regional and coastal capabilities for biogeochemistry observations and predictions.
Although there has been investment in biogeochemical sensors, they still represent a small part of the observation system; for example, only 7.5% of the current system measures dissolved oxygen and this figure drops further for other biogeochemical variables.
To provide the basic information needed to track ocean carbon and oxygen levels, we need a significant increase in both biological and biogeochemical testing.
Another missing piece of the puzzle is the 75% of the ocean that remains unmapped. New technologies and collaborations are adding up and 5.4 million km2 of new data has been acquired since 2022, but there is still a long way to go. Major global efforts to expand our knowledge of the undersea world are essential and should be distributed in both hemispheres.
The main driver of the North-South disparity in ocean forecasting is the need for extensive supercomputing infrastructure. New forecasting systems using AI models promise to reduce this imbalance. With these data-driven systems, a ten-day weather forecast can be computed in less than a minute, and there is the possibility of AI-based forecasts to extend forecast limits up to 60 days. This will help protect coastal cities and build climate resilience.
The United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development 2021-2030 is an opportunity to integrate the transformative changes in ocean forecasting by developing a new framework for ocean forecasting and exploiting important opportunities, including contributing to the arrival of AI. This work has begun, but too many communities have yet to benefit from sophisticated coastal forecasting.
We call on G20 leaders to prioritize ocean monitoring, data management and forecasting as they act to meet their commitments to the SDGs and global challenges. Global cooperation and investment in forecasting technology and equitable access to ocean data will bring many, long-term benefits to millions of people around the world. It’s time to close the North-South divide and develop a balanced ocean forecast for a safe, sustainable future.
Mathieu BelbéochWorld Meteorological Organization, OceanOPS; Emma HeslopIntergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO.
IPS UN Bureau
Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
Follow IPS News UN Bureau on Instagram
© Inter Press Service (2024) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service
