Among other things, the observations can give a more precise picture of how surface-level ocean conditions and the interaction with the atmosphere has evolved since 2012.

“Climate change is without doubt one of the biggest challenges the global community is facing, and we have set an ambitious strategy for our business to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions in 2040, but we have also as a part of our ESG strategy committed ourselves to contribute to climate and ocean science with data gathered from our vessels. An opportunity being our digitized weather observations,” Aslak Ross adds.

9 million observations

The data – more than 9 million observations – will be shared via the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS), run jointly by UNESCO and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). GOOS collects ocean weather observations for climate science and provides input to weather forecasts.

“As a member of the scientific community, I am thrilled that we get access to this unique data set. The data will help to better constrain past ocean surface conditions but also help to improve future predictions – from weather to climate,” says Dr. Johannes Karstensen of GEOMAR, the Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research in Kiel, Germany.

With all 300 Maersk-owned vessels sharing data multiple times a day, Maersk shares more than 7,000 observations every day. Some vessels are even live feeding data to weather services around the globe. In collaboration with the National Meteorological Service of Germany, Maersk has installed Automated Weather Stations on several of its vessels. These are calibrated research-grade measurement stations which collect a greater variety of data points at a higher quality, even further improving the contribution to weather forecasting and climate science.