RINGO, 'Readiness of ICOS for Necessities of Integrated Global Observations' is a 4-year H2020 project with a total budget of 4,719,680.00 euros. RINGO has 43 partners in 19 countries and consists of 5 work packages with specific emphasis on the further development of the readiness of ICOS Research Infrastructure (ICOS RI) to foster its sustainability.

RINGO’s five principal objectives are scientific, geographcical, technological, data as well as political and administrative readiness:

1. Scientific readiness.To support the further consolidation of the observational networks and enhance their quality. This objective is mainly science-guided and will increase the readiness of ICOS RI to be the European pillar in a global observation system on greenhouse gases.

2. Geographical readiness.To enhance ICOS membership and sustainability by supporting interested countries to build a national consortium, to promote ICOS towards the national stakeholders, to receive consultancy e.g. on possibilities to use EU structural fund to build the infrastructure for ICOS observations and also to receive training to improve the readiness of the scientists to work inside ICOS.

3. Technological readiness.To further develop and standardize technologies for greenhouse gas observations necessary to foster new knowledge demands and to account for and contribute to technological advances.

4. Data readiness.To improve data streams towards different user groups, adapting to the developing and dynamic (web) standards.

5. Political and administrative readiness. To deepen the global cooperation of observational infrastructures and with that the common societal impact. Impact is expected on the further development and sustainability of ICOS via scientific, technical and managerial progress and by deepening the integration into global observation and data integration systems.

Within Ringo, IOW is leading the Task 3.2 “Development and test of technological solutions for high quality measurements of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere using Voluntary Observing Ships (VOS)”.

The ICOS Ocean observational program is running autonomous systems to measure the partial pressure of CO₂ in surface waters on commercial carrier ships (Voluntary Observing Ship, VOS) which allows for high spatiotemporal data coverage, and is a major component of the OTC data stream. Atmospheric dry air mole fractions are measured less frequent or not on VOS lines, and are usually not acquired according to standards required for high-quality atmospheric measurements. Improving the atmospheric part of the measurements on VOS lines according to the WMO and ICOS guidelines has been identified as a potential cost-efficient way to enhance the atmospheric data coverage and to gather data from areas difficult to access, in some cases at critical regions in terms of air mass boundaries. Task 3.2 will develop and test technological solutions for three different settings and approaches, and assess the added value for the atmospheric observation network. The platforms comprise of three VOS lines running in the Baltic (equipped by IOW), from France to French Guinea (Université der Versailles), and across the North Atlantic (equipped by GEOMAR).

IOW is leading Task 3.2, and will be responsible for the construction and installation of a mobile stand-alone module for continuous atmospheric CO₂ and CH₄ measurements on the VOS Finnmaid, running between Helsinki and Lübeck. The developed module should be transferable with minimum amendments on most other VOS lines providing enough space on deck. VOS Finnmaid is easily accessible for partner IOW in Lübeck and for members of the ICOS HO in Helsinki, has a very short transit repetition frequency and bridges the land-based atmospheric ICOS network south and north of the Baltic Sea.