Euro-Argo ERIC, a new European research infrastructure for global ocean observations

Euro-Argo is the European contribution to the international Argo array of 3,000 profiling floats measuring temperature and salinity from the surface down to 2,000 m throughout the global oceans. This is the first time a European legal entity (European Research Infrastructure Consortium, ERIC) has been established for in-situ observation of the global oceans. This is a major milestone which will optimize, sustain and improve the European contributions to Argo. Euro-Argo was officially created by the European Commission on May 12, 2014. It is also the first ERIC to be set up for environmental sciences. The Euro-Argo inauguration event will be held in Brussels on July 17, 2014