Group of Senior Officials (GSO) on global Research Infrastructures visiting Ifremer

On June 4th, the Argo network and its European component the EURO-ARGO ERIC were presented to the Group of Senior Officials (GSO) on global Research Infrastructures of G7 who coordinates Research Infrastructures at Global scale. The group met first in ROSCOFF where the EMBRC ERIC was presented and the second day at Ifremer where Euro-Argo was presented together with the French Research fleet and the Concordia Antarctic station.

Sylvie Pouliquen presented how the setup of an ERIC has strengthened the European contribution to the Argo network, Europe aiming at supporting 1/4 of the global network. Improving our monitoring and understanding of climate change will crucially depend on the Argo new design: "global, full depth and multidisciplinary". This new design costs three times the cost of the original design. The next challenges for Euro-Argo is to sustain and extend the European component of Argo. To achieve this goal we need a strong support from G7 and the GSO working group.