The oceanographic metrology community: why, when and how should we build a coordination ?

In the context of climate change, the European budget for marine data collection is up to €1.4 billion p.a., both for satellite data and for in-situ observations. In the latter case, the resort to vessel-based data-gathering remains associated to elevated costs. Meanwhile, burgeoning technology made it possible to create complexes of distributed, autonomous, real-time sensor systems called “observatories” which allow to obtain a huge amount of data covering large area at a reasonable cost. However, research and decision-making policies at transnational level require those data to be reliable and comparable in order to be used for any user-group requirements purposes. The instruments which produce these data are required to measure within known specifications, at any time despite the harsh conditions in which they operate, so that the measurement results will be metrologically sound. Supporting the development of the operational oceanography in Europe, a metrology community dedicated to oceanography has been collaborating from the very early days in order to sustain and promote the quality of measurements made in marine environments. However, up to now, this quality insurance relies on ten or so metrology laboratories all over Europe, and the number of metrology laboratory creations is scarce despite an important increase of metrology needs. Responding to the need, 10 years ago, in the framework of EU projects (JERICO, FixO3), several metrology laboratories from oceanographic institutes (HCMR, OGS, IFREMER, SYKE) initiated discussions on possible ways to structure the community, enhancing collaboration, promoting integration and adopting best practices. Parallel to this, national metrology institutes (LNE, PTB, INRIM, IPQ, YMPARISTO, …) started to address the oceanographic metrology topic through dedicated metrology calls (EURAMET). This dispersion of effort was rapidly identified as the main cause of lack of progress in the thematic and laboratories decided to engage in a sustained effort for collaboration. This paper illustrates how metrology is a key player in the current environmental and political context, why it is so important to agree quickly about solutions to build a European sustainable structure and what are the different collaborative opportunities afforded by Europe.