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Global climate is regulated by the ocean, which stores, releases, and transports large amounts of mass, heat, carbon, and oxygen. Understanding, monitoring, and predicting the exchanges of these quantities across the ocean’s surface, their interactions with the atmosphere, and their horizontal and vertical pathways through the global oceans, are key for advancing fundamental knowledge and improving forecasts and longer-term projections of climate, weather, and ocean ecosystems. The existing global observing system provides immense value for science and society in this regard by supplying the data essential for these advancements. The tropical ocean observing system in particular has been developed over decades, motivated in large part by the far-reaching and complex global impacts of tropical climate variability and change. However, changes in observing needs and priorities, new challenges associated with climate change, and advances in observing technologies demand periodic evaluations to ensure that stakeholders’ needs are met. Previous reviews and assessments of the tropical observing system have focused separately on individual basins and their associated observing needs. Here we provide a broader perspective covering the tropical observing system as a whole. Common gaps, needs, and recommendations are identified, and interbasin differences driven by socioeconomic disparities are discussed, building on the concept of an integrated pantropical observing system. Finally, recommendations for improved observations of tropical basin interactions, through oceanic and atmospheric pathways, are presented, emphasizing the benefits that can be achieved through closer interbasin coordination and international partnerships.