From November 4 to 7, the State Key Laboratory of Satellite Ocean Environment Dynamics successfully held the 6th Scientific Steering Committee Meeting of the Tropical Pacific Observing System 2020 Project (TPOS 2020). Nearly 50 experts from nearly 20 institutions around the world, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the World Meteorological Organization, and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, attended the meeting.
      TPOS 2020 is an international cooperation program established by the UNESCO Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) under the framework of the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS). It aims to re-evaluate and plan the tropical Pacific observing system with the TAO/TRITON buoy network as the core established in the 1980s and 1990s, take a full account of the opportunities brought by scientific development, technological progress and new international partners, and build a more complete and sustainable tropical Pacific observing system by 2020. At present, Academician Chen Dake from SIO serves as a member of the Scientific Steering Committee of the project, and has a wide influence in promoting the implementation of the project at the national level.
      At the meeting, the progress of the implementation of the TPOS 2020 was reviewed, the future management and implementation of the TPOS 2020 was discussed, and the outline of the final report was determined. The participants summarized the meeting and subsequent cooperation plans. Since 2014, the TPOS 2020 Steering Committee Meeting has been held for five consecutive sessions, and the organizers are South Korea, Australia, Peru, the United States and Japan, respectively. The SOED undertook the 6th Scientific Steering Committee Meeting of TPOS 2020, which not only expands the international cooperation, but also effectively enhances China’s voice in international large-scale observation programs.