The impetus for the creation of GOOS came from the IOC’s Technical Committee for Ocean Processes and Climate in the late 1980s. The concept of a global ocean observing system grew from the realisation that understanding and forecasting climate change would require a long-term, multivariate ocean observing system.

In 1988 the IOC created an ad hoc expert group to prepare proposals for the development of an integrated global ocean observing system leading to a world ocean watch. In 1989 the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and the IOC endorsed the programme suggested by the expert group to design and implement a global operational observing system.

GOOS in its present form was created in 1991 when it was agreed that the ocean observing system concept should be broadened to include physical, chemical, and biological coastal ocean monitoring. The IOC established a GOOS Support Office (GSO) and the WMO agreed to act as co-sponsor.

In 1992, an Intergovernmental committee for GOOS (I-GOOS) was formed to coordinate the implementation of GOOS. A GOOS Technical and Scientific Advisory Panel (later to become the GSSC) was proposed the same year, and the GOOS Project Office (GPO) was set up within the IOC. By 1998 a GOOS strategic plan and prospectus had been published.

Today, GOOS is considered to be the oceanographic component of the Global Earth Observing System of Systems (GEOSS).

More information on GOOS can be obtained from www.ioc-goos.org.