Past, Present and Future of the Ocean Observation in the Indo-Pacific Region

Abstract

In 1987, the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC), the former Japan Marine Science and Technology Center, conducted ocean observations in the equatorial region of the Pacific Ocean as part of the El Niño emergency study, and from 1988 to 1993 as a part of JAPACS project. After that, time-series observations in the western tropical region using sub-surface mooring systems were added by the in-house TOCS project of JAMSTEC, and these observation activities were further developed within an international framework. This marked the beginning of the buoy network observations that continued for about 20 years and followed by TRITON buoys project. In 2000, the buoy array by the TRITON buoys in the western Pacific officially became to play a part of the TAO buoy network (west side) operated by the United States and conducted long-term observations until 2021 as the TAO/TRITON buoy array. After that, in response to the critical situation of maintaining the Pacific buoy network (TAO/TRITON buoy array) in both Japan and the United States, the TPOS2020 project was launched in 2015 with the support of international organizations (WMO and IOC/UNESCO) to design a new observation network and governance to operate, and finally in 2022 the new Tropical Pacific Observing System (TPOS) project was launched for its implementation. In this paper, based on the history of long-term time-series observations mainly in the tropical Pacific Ocean at JAMSTEC, and based on these experiences and the recent scientific and technical discussions at TPOS2020, future perspectives of ocean observations in the Indo-Pacific are discussed.