The diverse spectrum of observational capabilities presented in this session characterize the potential for ocean observing that will enable a bold new economic sector of environmental information and services. Founded on the technologies that have emerged over the last several decades, allowing us to observe the global oceans in all four dimensions, at increasingly higher resolutions and greater synopticity, we are now developing a vision of the future that will exploit whole new techniques and methodologies for measuring the oceans. From in situ environmental DNA sensors, to deep ARGO and biogeochemical ARGO floats and unmanned, untethered air, surface and undersea platforms, to data management technologies such as compressive sensing and data cloudsourcing, we are enabling a capability for even more skillful predictive (nowcast, forecast and hindcast) tools. Empowered with these new abilities, the ocean community is poised to support an extraordinarily diverse set of applications, in areas as diverse as public health, commerce, transportation, natural hazard mitigation, national security, and energy. Not unlike the explosion of applications that emerged with the development of the commercial weather sector half a century ago, the development of an even broader “New Blue Economy” is within reach. Several examples of the imminent applications of ocean observations to support economic development will be presented.
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