ECMWF data coverage from ships (blue dots), buoys (yellow) and on land (green) over a 24-hour period.
ECMWF is one of the partners in an initiative for 10,000 ships to be equipped for ocean and weather monitoring, launched officially today, 13 June, at the 2025 United Nations Ocean Conference in Nice, France.
The 10,000 Ships for the Ocean initiative, which includes the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the UNESCO Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission and the International Maritime Organization (IMO) as UN partners, aims to fill major observation gaps through real-time data collected aboard commercial vessels.
It will increase the current fleet of 2,000 to a global fleet of 10,000 commercial vessels providing meteorological data, which will help to improve the accuracy of weather forecasts, early warning systems, and climate monitoring, benefiting both society at large and maritime operations.
ECMWF data coverage in Europe from ships, buoys and on land over a 24-hour period.
Florence Rabier, the Director-General of ECMWF, is at the Ocean Conference in Nice to support the initiative. She says: “I am pleased to join the community calling for the maritime industry to commit to provide ships with meteorological equipment. This initiative will go some way to address the gap in weather measurements over the ocean. To give a context, we currently use 15 times less data from ships over sea than from meteorological stations over land to predict the weather worldwide – the more data points we get, the more accurate our forecasts will be.”
Florence Rabier (right) at the 2025 United Nations Ocean Conference in Nice with Jacqueline Sugier from the UK Met Office, representing EUMETNET.
The 10,000 Ships for the Ocean initiative builds on the century-long legacy of ships at sea observing the ocean and the atmosphere, contributing to safety, science, and maritime operations.
Although the ocean covers over 70% of our planet, vast areas remain under-observed. The goal of the initiative is to create a modern, coordinated global fleet of 10,000 commercial vessels equipped to collect and share real-time ocean and weather data by 2035, building on decades of expertise and an existing network of 2,000 ships.
“For over a century, commercial ships have been acting as our eyes in the ocean, collecting vital weather and ocean data,” said Celeste Saulo, WMO Secretary-General. “A global alliance with the shipping industry is what we need to scale up our ship-based observing infrastructure. This will shape the future of ocean intelligence and unlock global benefit for operations, forecasting, early warnings, climate understanding and environmental stewardship.”
ECMWF joins the other partner organisations of the 10,000 Ships for the Ocean initiative, which are the Institut Polytechnique de Paris (IP Paris), the Institut Français de Recherche pour l'Exploitation de la Mer (Ifremer), the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO), the European Meteorological Network (EUMETNET), Mercator Ocean International, the Baltic and International Maritime Council (BIMCO) and OceansX.