backbone of the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS) is the Argo system, which uses an array of >3000 profiling floats (Figure 2). Until recently, Argo was restricted to ice free oceanic regions, as the floats [...] Technology and Logistics Observations of the ocean’s temperature and salinity at different locations and depths – key parameters to assess its state - depended until recently on ship-based expeditions [...] and deep-sea moorings, limiting our ability to monitor oceanic change at adequate resolution and over necessary periods in time and space. However, with the turn of the century, automated systems gained