This presentation provides a view of the status of the global ocean observing system for climate, a system that helps to develop a more robust understanding of sea level, sea ice, carbon, heat, salinity, and air-sea exchange parameters. The NOAA Office of Climate Observation (OCO) supports oceanic and marine meteorology projects designed to contribute to the implementation of a global climate observing system. NOAA has worked with national and international partners to begin building a sustained global ocean system for climate. With the initial system design approximately 45% complete, the Office of Climate Observation’s goal includes enhancing the number of tide gauges, Argo profilers, drifting buoys, moored buoys in arctic and tropical regions, expendable bathythermographs, ocean reference stations, and ocean carbon measurements. Global coverage is anticipated by 2010. OCO-sponsored projects are predominately U.S. contributions to global networks coordinated through international science and implementation panels, and managed in cooperation with the Joint WMO/IOC Technical Commission for Oceanography and Marine Meteorology (JCOMM). The Office of Climate Observation promotes the utilization of platform and data infrastructure for several objectives, including understanding the Earth's climate system, and documenting sea level change and the global carbon and water cycles. The overall objective is to foster a "system" approach to effective international organization of complementary in situ, satellite, data, and modeling components of climate observation.