Most recent advances in understanding our environment have been underpinned by new observations, whether through innovative ways of measuring new environmental properties or simply through incremental improvements in sensor and platform robustness and stability, leading to more sustained, better sampled, observations. In this session, we invite contributions illustrating how new observations have helped to advance scientific understanding about how the ocean works. We welcome contributions from a range of advances, including in microchip technologies, Autosub and ROV deployments, ships of opportunity, eulerian and langrangian observing platforms and in satellite observations. New ways of integrating sensing and observing systems are especially welcome.