Ocean Reference Stations (ORS): An Air-Sea Flux Reference Network

As a part of the global array of ocean time series stations or observatories, surface moorings equipped with comprehensive surface meteorological and air-sea exchange sensor systems are planned at key sites. The sites are chosen to be representative of the diverse meteorological regimes of the world's oceans and would be permanently occupied in order to collect long time series in support of climate monitoring and prediction, of making accurate maps of the air-sea fluxes of heat, freshwater and momentum, of improving numerical weather prediction and other atmospheric models, and of understanding, modeling and predicting ocean variability. These sites are known as Ocean Reference Stations (ORS). This paper reviews work at select ORS in order to illustrate methodology and results