Ocean monitoring in support of fisheries research and management

Monitoring of fluctuations of ocean conditions in time and space is vital for understanding fluctuations of marine populations. Three scales of temporal and spatial resolution are desired: 1) global, long term annual and monthly mean data for planning surveys and for understanding distributions of populations, 2) regional, monthly data to understand and predict annual recruitment and catches, and 3) mesoscale, daily data for research on biological processes and as tactical support for fishing vessels. Due to high costs of operation, monitoring on the largest two scales is not feasible with research vessels. Monitoring is possible, however, using a mix of surface weather and XBT observations from ships of opportunity, tide gauge data, observations from moored and drifting buoys, and remote sensing images from satellites.