In December 2019, the OceanObs'19 Community White Paper on "Multidisciplinary Observing in the World Ocean’s Oxygen Minimum Zone Regions: From Climate to Fish — The VOICE Initiative" was published. The Variability of the Oxycline and its ImpaCt on the Ecosystem (VOICE; http://www.ioccp.org/voice) initiative, supported by IOCCP since its beginning in 2017, aims to demonstrate how societal benefit applications drive the need for integration and optimization of biological, biogeochemical, and physical components of regional ocean observing related to eastern boundary systems (EBSs). VOICE chose to focus on the upper oxycline (transition between high and low oxygen waters) which is fundamentally important for the ecosystem structure and can be a useful proxy for multiple observing (and modelling) objectives connected to EBSs that neighbour oxygen minimum zones. In this paper, we present a first readiness level assessment for ocean observing of the oxycline in EBS around the globe.

The paper can be accessed openly and freely at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2019.00722/full