The Commission's ""Marine Knowledge 2020"" initiative, in line with Europe's 2020 strategy, aims to unlock and assemble marine data from different sources and facilitate their use for purposes other than those for which they were originally intended. This will have three major benefits:
- First, it will improve the efficiency of all those private bodies, public authorities and researchers which presently use marine data. Less time and effort will be spent assembling and processing incompatible data from heterogeneous sources.
- Second, it will open up new opportunities and drive innovation in the maritime economy, as universal and reliable access to accurate marine data will enable European business to offer products and services that nobody could have anticipated beforehand.
-And third, it will reduce uncertainties in our knowledge of the behaviour of the seas and oceans. Not only benefiting those living and working on the seas and at the coast. Circulation in the oceans drives the terrestrial climate. Improved knowledge of the sea is not a sufficient condition for better forecasting of the future severity or mildness of Europe's seasons. But it is a necessary one. Thus better marine knowledge can contribute towards Europe's adaptation to climate change.