Description: This deliverable reports on the achievements of the EuroSea project in developing targeted indicators co-designed with demonstrators (WPs 5–7) and forecasts (WP4). For this, the indicators implemented are expressed in term of Essential Ocean/Climate Variables (EOVs/ECVs) together with their requirements. The co-development undertaken address ocean indicators for all range of scales: from the large, basin scale to the regional and local scales. Such approach as well as the proposed solution to focus, at regional/local scales, on EEZs, represent one of the innovative results of EuroSea that will help to rationalize risks assessments and guide environmental management approaches in European Seas.

Description: The European Ocean Observing and Forecasting System (EOOFS) plays a pivotal role in understanding, monitoring, forecasting, and managing the complex dynamics and resources of Europe's Seas. It serves as a critical interdisciplinary system for addressing a myriad of challenges, from climate change impacts to marine resources management. However, to ensure its continued effectiveness, it is essential to identify and address the gaps within this system and provide actionable recommendations for improvements at short- and long-term. Therefore, this document serves as a baseline that can guide the funders and supporters of the EOOFS, as well as the various stakeholders directly or indirectly related to the EOOFS, towards the gaps that hinder better monitoring and prediction of various ocean phenomena, along the ocean observing value chain. The main identified gaps are related to spatial and temporal coverage of data and products of the EOOFS, the data integration and accessibility by various types of users, the uncertainties of projections, the technological challenges, as well as to the engagement of various actors and the communication of results and services to them. The main recommendations to be taken into consideration for addressing all highlighted gaps are detailed in the report for every phenomenon and component of the ocean value chain. These recommendations are not provided just to satisfy the academic interest of the EOOFS community, however, they may have profound implications for multiple sectors and the society as a whole, if taken into consideration. This is due to the fact that the EOOFS is essential for climate change mitigation and adaptation measures, in improving the efficiency of the marine resources’ management, in enhancing the resilience of marine and coastal ecosystems as well as coastal cities and infrastructures against disasters and extreme events, for shipping and navigation safety, and for the scientific advancements and innovations of Europe in the field of marine science that serves the society. We propose a scoring approach that can evaluate the EOOFS readiness level (RL) in monitoring ocean phenomena, on a regular basis and in a systematic way. We have demonstrated the usefulness of this approach by implementing it based on our assessment and the feedback of the EOOFS community. The main results clearly show that the EOOFS has “Fitness for Purpose” readiness levels (RL 7) in the three main pillars of the value chain (Input, Process, and Output) only for one ocean phenomenon, while 83% of ocean phenomena have RLs varying from 1 (Idea) to 4 (Trial). A deeper analysis of the scoring results reflects that the EOOFS major gaps are predominantly concentrated in two of its three pillars: the coordination and observational elements (Process) and data management and information products (Output) (Figure 1). In a changing world that is affecting all aspects of European lives, it is crucial to significantly invest and support the EOOFS to better monitor and accurately predict the European Seas, and provide sustained services that can help businesses and improve the resilience of communities and resources.

Description: The 4th Evolving and Sustaining Ocean Best Practices Workshop was held online during the period 17-30 September 2020, addressing community needs for advanced method development and implementation in ocean observations, data management and application. The proceedings for the subject workshop are provided in 2 volumes. Volume 1 addresses the meeting overview, and Volume 2 - Annexes includes the complete Working Group reports.

Description: Report on ASV-Network structure and roadmap Revised edition

Description: Identification of local and regional impacts of oxygen, heat and pH related “Extreme Marine Events”: Ocean model data products are overlaid with existing marine biological datasets to identify sensitive areas and organism vulnerabilities.

Description: Currently, the ocean carbon sink annually removes about a third of anthropogenic fossil fuel and industrial CO2 emissions, reducing therefore climate change damages and CO2 abatement costs. While the land sinks have entered climate policies, the ocean sink has not—for good reasons since the former stores carbon within the boundaries of a state while the ocean removes carbon from the atmosphere rather in its property as a global common. However, the question remains what is the value of the ocean carbon sink and should it be differently attributed when comparing a coastal state with a large exclusive economic zone (EEZ) compared to landlocked state. Here, we demonstrate different approaches to value the ocean sink, comparing a climate-change damage-based approach with an abatement, market-based approach. We use a high-resolution carbon flux dataset (0.25x0.25 degree) to estimate the ocean carbon sink and source in coastal areas. We assign a net sink of 1.72 GtC proportional to countries with negative carbon fluxes in their EEZ. In our calculation the annual value of the global ocean sink ranges from 61.19 B USD (Std 31.80), equivalent to the 2021 GDP of Slovenia, to 1433 B USD (Std 94.30), equivalent to the 2021 GDP of Spain (World Bank data) for the abatement cost-based assessment approach (assuming full emission trading and low ambition levels in the national determined contribution) and for the climate-change damage-based assessment approach relying on an upper value of the social cost of carbon in our investigation. By breaking down the carbon sink by nations EEZ we estimate which countries are the largest donors of ocean carbon wealth and which countries would be affected the most if a weakening of the ocean sink would need to be compensated by higher emission reduction levels.

Description: Several legal frameworks exist that are important for states conducting ocean observing activities or for which it would be relevant to include the necessity of ocean observing activities and development of ocean information products. Existing hard and soft law frameworks and mechanisms will be analysed to enable adequate adaptation of ocean observing system design at a regional and global level, with a focus on supporting sustained ocean observing and fit-for-purpose ocean information products.

Description: This document presents the results of simulations that include glider profiles assimilation. Simulations are performed with the Marine Copernicus operational biogeochemical model system of the Mediterranean Sea. The deliverable shows that the assimilation of BGC-glider is feasible in the contest of biogeochemical operational systems and that it is built upon the experience of BGC-Argo float data assimilation. Different configuration of the assimilation of glider data have been tested to assess the impact of the physical and biogeochemical glider observations. The deliverable also describes the pre-processing activities of the BGC-glider data to provide qualified observations for the data assimilation and the cross validation of chlorophyll glider data with other sensors (ocean colour and BGC-Argo floats). Results of the simulations show that BGC-glider data assimilation, as already shown for BGC-Argo floats, provides complementary information with respect to Ocean Colour data (which is the only or the most commonly assimilated data in biogeochemical operational systems). Beside their relatively limited horizontal spatial impact, the assimilation of BGC profiles can constrain model simulations for relevant biogeochemical processes in specific periods (summer and transition periods) and layers (surface and subsurface). Results also highlight the importance of the assimilation modelling systems that can efficiently resolve the inconsistencies between chlorophyll observations of different sensors.