UK Argo - Observing the Global Ocean to Better Understand Earth’s Changing Climate

The UK Argo Programme has been contributing to the international Argo observing network since 2000, with the first UK floats deployed in 2001. It remains an ongoing national contribution to sustained global ocean observing, helping to improve and understand our knowledge of many science areas, data products, model forecasts, etc contributing to improving knowledge of climate change forecasts, ocean heat content estimation and ocean productivity.

The programme deploys autonomous profiling floats that provide continuous observations of the ocean, measuring temperature, salinity and a growing range of biogeochemical properties. UK Argo contributes to Core, Biogeochemical (BGC), Deep and Polar Argo missions, supporting ocean monitoring, climate research, operational forecasting and understanding of marine ecosystems.

The UK is a significant contributor to the global Argo network. Since the beginning of the project, the UK has contributed around 4.67 % to the global Argo fleet, with the current contribution of 3.26 % of the active UK Argo fleet. The UK strategy aims to maintain approximately 8 % of the anticipated global fleet.