An Approach to Choose Observation Systems to Observe Ocean Phenomena

The ocean occupies more than two-thirds of the Earth’s surface, but 90% of it is still unexplored. Appropriate ocean observation systems are fundamental to this exploration towards understanding climate change, monitoring marine pollution and exploiting the ocean’s resources. Motivated by this, an analysis of ocean observation systems examines the ocean phenomena, sensors and observation platforms as described in terms of temporal and spatial scales. Proposed, is an approach to evaluate the efficacy of an observation system to sense an ocean phenomena. It superimposes the temporal and spatial scales of the phenomena against candidate ocean observation systems to find the best fit. The platforms performance are analysed using criteria as well as observation strengths and limitations.