OASIS is a community working to harmonize observational strategies and develop a practical, integrated approach to observing air-sea interactions through capacity development, leveraging of multi-disciplinary activities, and advancement of understanding.

Air-sea exchanges of energy, moisture, and gases drive and modulate the Earth’s weather and climate, influencing life, including our own. These air-sea interactions fuel the hydrological cycle and affect precipitation across the globe. Air-sea interactions affect the distribution of carbon dioxide between the atmosphere and ocean, how seawater flows and winds blow, and how pollutants floating on the ocean surface move – information critical to policymakers, industry, and civil society. The SCOR Working Group #162 envisions Observing Air-Sea Interactions Strategy (OASIS) as a UN Ocean Decade Program that will shape and implement the strategy over the next decade through worldwide partnerships. For more information, see our SCOR Working Group Prospectus and UN Ocean Decade Programme Application.

OASIS started gaining momentum at OceanObs’19, the decadal conference that assembled more than 1,500 ocean scientists, engineers, and users of ocean observing technologies from 74 countries and across many disciplines. After the OceanObs’19 conference, the air-sea flux community began to grow, and several individuals came together to draft a SCOR working group proposal. In October 2020, the proposal was selected as a SCOR WG. Since then, we have organized our first teleconferences and begun developing our implementation plan. In June 2021, OASIS officially became a UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development Programme.