Using Submarine Communications Networks to Monitor the Climate

This ITU-T Technology Watch Report gives an overview of how old and new submarine cables could be used for decades to come as a major resource and a real-time global network to monitor climate change and to provide tsunami warnings. Future generations of cables and associated components could have the capacity to directly measure climate variables, such as water temperature, salinity and pressure on the ocean floor. All this could be achieved over long periods of time at low cost. By encouraging technical standardization, ITU can facilitate implementation of this capacity. This report was prepared by Yuzhu You of the Institute of Marine Science, University of Sydney, Australia.