The Argo Float 6901921 was deployed on 21/03/2016 at 53.245 N, -16.113 W. The most current measurement was taken on 29/08/2024. The autonomous floats drift on the ocean currents for 10 days at 1000 m before diving to its profiling depth of 2000 m, taking ocean property measurements of temperature and salinity on its ascent to the surface. These two essential climate variables describe the oceans' physical and thermodynamic state. Once surfaced the data are transmitted via satellite. Marine Institute floats used ARGOS communications until 2017, and moved to Iridium communications in 2018 allowing for more information transmitted at faster rates with a two-way communication to the float. The Iridium communication means the float surface times are between 15-30 minutes instead of hours using ARGOS communication. The data are accessible online at Erddap (https://erddap.marine.ie/erddap/tabledap/argoFloats.html) and https://argo.ucsd.edu/data/. The Marine Research Infrastructures team operate and manage Ireland's contribution to Argo - a global array of autonomous floats or profilers, deployed across the world's oceans, reporting subsurface ocean water properties to a wide range of users via satellite transmission links to data centers.
The Argo array is an indispensable component of the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS) required to understand and monitor the role of the ocean in the Earth’s climate system, in particular the heat and water balance. The International Argo programme currently has a network of approximately 4,000 Argo floats taking measurements in the world’s oceans and is integrated into the Copernicus programme and the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS). The Euro-Argo European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC), which Ireland is a member of, aims to sustain 25% of Argo International’s global fleet autonomous floats.