Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS)

IMOS is designed to be a fully-integrated, national system, observing at ocean-basin and regional scales, and covering physical, chemical and biological variables. IMOS Facilities, operated by ten different institutions within the National Innovation System, are funded to deploy equipment and deliver data streams for use by the entire Australian marine and climate science community and its international collaborators. The IMOS Ocean Portal (http://imos.aodn.org.au) allows marine and climate scientists and other users to discover and explore data streams coming from all of the Facilities ¿ some in near-real time, and all as delayed-mode, quality-controlled data. These data streams, long time-series that are ¿under construction¿, represent the actual research infrastructure being created and developed by IMOS. IMOS observations are guided by science planning undertaken collaboratively across the Australian marine and climate science community. IMOS now has a National Science and Implementation Plan that draws on the intellectual strength of its six science Nodes ¿ a ¿Bluewater and Climate¿ Node focused on the open ocean, and five ¿Regional Nodes¿ covering the continental shelf and coastal seas of Western Australia, Queensland, New South Wales, Southern Australia and Tasmania. Leaders of the Nodes come together to form a national steering committee that oversees the whole process, and IMOS science plans are subjected to international peer review on a rolling basis to ensure the planned science is world-class.

There are five major research themes that unify IMOS science plans and related observations: 1. Multi-decadal ocean change, 2. Climate variability and weather extremes 3. Major boundary currents and interbasin flows 4. Continental shelf processes, and 5. Ecosystem responses (productivity, abundance and distribution).

IMOS is supported by the Australian Government through the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy and the Super Science Initiative. It is led by the University of Tasmania on behalf of the Australian marine and climate science community.