Moose: An integrated multi-site system of NW Mediterranean marine and atmospheric observatories

Abstract

Despite intensive research efforts undertaken in the Mediterranean Sea over more than a century, an integrated view of its evolution, viewed in the climate change and anthropogenic pressure, still lacks. In this context, a Mediterranean Ocean Observing System on Environment (MOOSE) has been set up as an interactive, distributed and integrated observatory system of the NW Mediterranean Sea to detect and identify long-term environmental anomalies. It will be based on a multisite system of continental shelf and deep-sea fixed stations as well as Lagrangian platform network to observe the spatio-temporal variability of processes interacting between the coastal-open ocean and the ocean-atmosphere components. Another target is to build efficient indicators of the health of the NW Mediterranean basin. MOOSE will also provide a large flux of realtime data to facilitate validation of operational oceanographic models. It will supply and maintain long-term time series, the only data sets that allow to evidence climatic trends. Finally, MOOSE project is supported by the Inter-Organization Environment Committee (CIO-E) and INSU to stimulate the national scientific community and European partners for a significant multidisciplinary program.