The four-year Horizon Europe TRICUSO seeks to enhance every level of the Southern Ocean carbon observation value chain from innovating sensor technologies and expanding observation capacities via autonomous and citizen science platforms, to data products and system governance in support of the WMO Global Greenhouse Gas Watch (G3W).
VOLUME TWO STORIES
Pardon our tardiness – we are noticeable late with the Autumn (N) – Spring (S) volume, evident by the lack of leaves left on trees in Europe and the passing of the month of November in both hemispheres. We received news of a most fortuitous opportunity to install the TRICUSO OceanPack™ RACE instrument on an intimate cruise vessel touring Antarctica on the 13th of December, and decided it was exactly the type of story we’d like to wrap up 2025 on, which also marks the end of TRICUSO’s first project year. We hope you enjoy!
Dear Readers,
It’s been one year of action for TRICUSO since the Kick-off Meeting in Southampton in January of 2025, and a lot has happened, obviously. The different work-packages and teams have found a rhythm of regular updates on the activities, and a number of new employees have started to work within the consortium via our respective partners. At the same time, we know that we have witnessed the highest annual increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration, and that the reduction of emissions of greenhouse gasses (GHGs) to the atmosphere is getting increasingly more important, just as we need to understand the ocean sink of CO2 better, particularly in the Southern Ocean – exactly what we are doing in TRICUSO.
I was excited to participate in the COP30 in Brazil, where I lobbied for the importance of the ocean for climate, in particular why and how we need to observe the ocean carbon uptake as we expect to find, through observation, a decline in the ocean’s ability to sequester carbon. I recommend reading an interesting paper by Jens Müller and colleagues that we recently published “Unexpected decline in the ocean carbon sink under record-high sea surface temperatures in 2023”. This all underscores the importance of the work we are doing in TRICUSO.
Yours,
Toste Tanhua, WP6 lead in TRICUSO
Hans Hansson Cruise - TRICUSO Meets its First Ship of Opportunity
Thanks to some good luck and dedication, Lucie Knor (GEOMAR) was able to take advantage of an exciting opportunity that involved a mad-dash to the Falkland Islands just in the nick of time to install the OceanPackTM RACE instrument on a ship of opportunity.
The Hans Hansson is a tourist, expedition yacht, a converted rescue boat, specifically built to withstand challenging weather. She has a capacity for 12 passengers and her tour covers approximately 600 nautical miles, from King George Island in the South Shetlands down to the Lemaire Strait. She is operated by 60 South who have a history of hosting scientists and researchers, and offering citizen science activities for their passengers. Equipping vessels like the Hans Hansson with our instruments on their planned tourist cruises has the potential for ongoing CO2 measurements in the under-observed Antarctic region, and enables TRICUSO to meet its objective of expanding observation via non-traditional platforms.
SOCONET Rising
During the first year of TRICUSO, the Surface Ocean CO2 Observing Network (SOCONET) experienced a significant acceleration towards the development of its international governance, coordination and communication capacity. This aligns with TRICUSO’s work package 6 objective to establish a governance structure for international surface pCO2 observations building on ICOS experiences that incorporates stabilising SOCAT.
Since SOCONET was approved as the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS) Emerging Network in mid 2024, the team at IO-PAN, led by Maciej Telszewski, has established the Steering Committee (SC), developed its Terms of Reference (ToR), nominated and approved two co-chairs and organised the first SOCONET SC meeting, which will take place in Bergen, 2026, on the heels of TRICUSO’s first Annual Meeting.
GEORGE Technical Forum II
Congratulations to our associate project GEORGE for its successful Technical Forum, which took place at the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ) in Ostend, Belgium this past October. Many TRICUSO colleagues attended the event which brought together 32 participants and 11 sensor experts from 11 countries, representing a wide variety of backgrounds.
European Marine Board Webinar with Peter Landschützer
On Thursday, 16 October 2025, EMB hosted its 53rd Third Thursday Science Webinar featuring Peter Landschützer (VLIZ). Peter shared the TRICUSO story within the context of discussing the topic: From global to regional marine carbon budgets – are we ready to monitor a decarbonising society?
Congratulations to Jacqueline
Newly minted Dr Jacqueline Behncke, is well known to the TRICUSO consortium having co-authored the pre-eminent paper: A detectable change in the air-sea CO2 flux estimate from sailboat measurements, which was used to support the development of our project proposal.
Recently, Jacqueline successfully defended her PhD: The Role of Sailboats in Advancing Our Understanding of the Ocean Carbon Sink. Jacqueline completed her research at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology and was co-supervised by Peter Landschützer (VLIZ). She will now join the TRICUSO project, assessing the status of the Southern Ocean carbon sink with Toste Tanhua at GEOMAR.
Congratulations Jacqueline, and welcome to the team!
EuroGO-SHIP Swan Song
Our associate project EuroGO-SHIP, coordinated by Elaine McDonagh (NORCE), has returned to harbour after its three year voyage to shape a new Research Infrastructure in support of the ship-based hydrography community in Europe. Successes and project summaries were presented at a Final Event on Wednesday, the 5th of November in Brussels, and encapsulated in a legacy video and a glossy impact brochure. Find them on the project website.
Unpacking the IPCC
TRICUSO hosted its first webinar, in partnership with our associate project OceanICU on the 6th of November. The event brought together former, current and newly elected IPCC authors to unpack its process and provide personal insights. The webinar was moderated by Richard Sanders (NORCE) and featured Peter Landschützer (VLIZ), Sandy Thomalla (CSIR), Stephanie Henson (NOC) and Alessandro Tagliabue (University of Liverpool).
Check out the webinar digital swag bag for a summary of the Q&A, the presentation slides and a link to the video recording.
Big Questions, Great Hopes - First Impressions from an Early Career Researcher
Discover the TRICUSO project from the perspective of Early Career Researcher Lucie Knor (GEOMAR): her challenges, highlights, surprises and hopes for the sustainable integration of citizen science platforms to expand the capacity of ocean carbon observation in the Southern Ocean.
Cross-over Progress: Advancements in Acoustic Sensor Deployment
Partners from sister project GEORGE have successfully integrated a compact passive acoustic sensor into an Argo float. These significant developments show how technologies developed in GEORGE are feeding directly into broader European efforts to advance autonomous ocean observing. The work also links directly to the TRICUSO project and its efforts to improve observations in the Southern Ocean. The results have been summarised in a new article by Louise Delaigue (Sorbonne University, LOV).
WMO G3W Observations Task Team Meeting
TRICUSO colleagues Maciej Telszewski (IO-PAN), Dorothee Bakker (UEA), and Richard Sanders (NORCE) joined experts from different scientific communities to discuss what a greenhouse gas observing network for the WMO G3W needs to look like to reach the initiative’s main goal: the creation of a sustained infrastructure that delivers monthly CO2 flux estimates for the whole Earth.
International Research Vessel Community
TRICUSO coordinator Richard Sanders (NORCE) gave a presentation at the International Research Vessel Community this past September, on behalf of several projects including AMRIT, TRICUSO, EuroGO-SHIP and GEORGE. His talk focused on the urgent need for more data regarding surface pCO2 levels to address critical gaps, and how research vessels are important platforms to ensure the collection of this data.
EMODnet Open Conference
Merel De Cock (SSBE) shared the TRICUSO story and stickers with marine data stakeholders who gathered in Brussels for the EMODnet Open Conference on 25-26 November 2025.
The Royal Society Meeting - Marine Biodiversity Loss, Fishing, and Climate Change
Sophie Clayton (NOC) gave a talk at the Royal Society’s Discussion Meeting co-chaired by Richard Sanders (NORCE). Sophie discussed the recent advances in building international coordination to incorporate routine open ocean observations of marine biological properties and processes into the existing GO-SHIP decadal repeat hydrography program via Bio-GO-SHIP. The two-day meeting in London on 7-8 December 2025 explored the link between biodiversity loss and climate change, which is often overlooked when it comes to the ocean, with leading scientists from around the world.
TRICUSO Annual Meeting
Bergen, Norway: 13-15 January 2026
The consortium will gather in Bergen for our first Annual Meeting.
Ocean Sciences Meeting
Glasgow, UK: 22-27 February 2026
TRICUSO colleagues Cathy Wimart-Rousseau, Pablo Trucco-Pignata (NOC) and Louise Delaigue (Sorbonne University) will be co-chairing a session: The Southern Ocean Carbon Sink: processes, observations, and change in Glasgow next year.
Our apologies to Louise Delaigue for slighting her contributions to the development of this session by omitting her name in the last newsletter.
TRICUSO is now on Instagram @tricuso_project.
Thank you for reading TRICUSO Currents. The next volume will be out in February.
