First SOCONET Steering Committee Meeting

We are very happy to let you know that the First Surface Ocean CO₂ Observing Network (SOCONET) Steering Committee Meeting took place last week in Bergen, Norway, following up the TRICUSO Annual Meeting. IOCCP at IO PAN delivers coordination and communication function for SOCONET and with dedicated funds in TRICUSO Consortium, we have been and will continue to be able to significantly accelerate the global integration of individual platform operators into a structured reference network.

Hosted by NORCE and ICOS-OTC, this meeting allowed the network to reach its important milestone in developing and implementing governance structures, and planning for an ambitious on-the-ground implementation.

The major focus of the meeting was on the Implementation Plan, which will be delivered in 2026 guiding the community towards combining the critical elements of the existing and upcoming technical capacity, allowing us to deliver on the societal and scientific information needs.

When implemented, SOCONET will be the backbone of monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) efforts allowing data-based incorporation of the ocean sinks into the global carbon assessments and stocktakes as well as reporting on ocean health, ocean acidification and marine carbon dioxide removal interventions.

To this end, five Task Teams were created, each aimed at delivering expert thematic content to the SOCONET Implementation Plan. Task Teams on Tiers, Data and Metadata, Network Design, Atmospheric Measurements and Training will include experts from outside of the Steering Committee to assure wide community input and realistic implementation targets across existing capacities. Each Task Team will develop a clear pathway for the community to implement around the specific topic, with actions spanning from months to years to a network vision a decade away.

We will be communicating on developments in this space, with the first opportunity to meet some of the SOCONET leadership and to learn more about the network at the Ocean Sciences Meeting where we will run a SOCONET Townhall where we will present SOCONET’s the current status and future prospects: https://agu.confex.com/agu/osm26/meetingapp.cgi/Session/255494.

Hope to see many of you there!