Results from a research cruise on R/V Sonne to the eastern tropical Pacific in October 2015 during the 2015–2016 El Niño show the transition of current, hydrographic, and nutrient conditions to El Niño conditions in the eastern tropical Pacific in October 2015. Although in early 2015 the El Niño was strong and in October 2015 showed a clear El Niño influence on the EUC, in the eastern tropical Pacific the measurements only showed developing El Niño water mass distributions.

The present research describes the effect of wave–current interactions and wave–wave interactions during severe storms on the east coast of Scotland. In this area, results show that the currents contribute substantially to the modification of wave properties in the shallow coastal areas, while the wave–wave interactions are more important offshore.

A profiling mooring with an interdisciplinary suite of sensors for water depths up to 300 m is described in this note. It can be programmed to take profiles through the water column at set times or intervals and with the standard set of batteries is able to profile about 34 km in total (e.g. 200 profiles of 170 m profiling each). The mooring was designed to observe the dynamics of the redoxcline in the Gotland Basin over periods of up to 3 months.

The coastal observation system COSYNA aims to describe the physical and biogeochemical state of a regional coastal system. The COSYNA data management (CODM) is the link between observations, model results and data usage. The challenge for CODM is the integration of diverse data sources in terms of parameters, dimensionality and observation methods to gain a comprehensive view of the observations. How this is achieved is described in the paper.

A new method of observing ocean heat content throughout the entire ocean depth is provided. The new method is compared with simulated ocean heat content changes from climate models. The comparisons are carried out in various depth layers of the ocean waters. It is found that there is excellent agreement between the models and the observations. Furthermore, we propose that changes to ocean heat content be used as a fundamental metric to evaluate climate models.

We have determined, for the first time, the seasonal changes and controlling processes of ocean acidification parameters across western Norwegian fjords, based on data obtained mainly with sensors on board a commercial ship, MS Trans Carrier, in 2005–2009. The study fills an important gap in our knowledge on ocean acidification in western Norwegian fjords, which are important ecosystems: important recreation areas, marine pathways, spawning grounds for different fish species, etc.

This white paper addresses key scientific challenges and research priorities for the development of operational oceanography in Europe for the next 5–10 years. Knowledge gaps and deficiencies are identified in relation to common scientific challenges in four EuroGOOS knowledge areas: European ocean observations, modelling and forecasting technology, coastal operational oceanography, and operational ecology.

Winds blowing over the ocean drive ocean currents. The oceanic response to winds is, in turn, influenced by ocean currents. Theoretical considerations suggest that the latter effect is especially pronounced in the Baltic Sea. The study presented here puts theses theoretical considerations in a high-resolution ocean circulation model of the Baltic Sea to the test.

Vertical velocity in the ocean makes an important contribution to the modulation of marine ecosystems through its impact on fluxes of nutrients and phytoplankton. Here, we estimate full 3-D current velocity fields from an observation-based data product. The 3-D currents are used to force a set of particle-tracking (Lagrangian) experiments. The Lagrangian results show that vertical motions induce local increases in nitrate uptake reaching up to 30 %.

Three alternative models for estimation of absorption of chromophoric dissolved organic matter (CDOM) have been formulated. The models were based on empirical database containing measurements from different regions of the Baltic Sea and three Pomeranian lakes in Poland. An assumption regarding continuum of inherent optical properties in marine and estuarine waters and freshwater has been proved and enabled the accurate estimation of CDOM absorption in various environments.