Correction to “Decadal analysis of hydrography and in situ nutrient budgets in the western and eastern North Atlantic subtropical gyre”

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2008. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research 113 (2008): C03005, doi:10.1029/2008JC004762

Uncrewed surface vehicles network in support to EOOS: the EuroSea project

A wide range of platforms and systems constitute the current Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS) including satellites, research vessels, floats, underwater gliders, fixed-point observatories, sea level stations, high frequency radar and uncrewed surface vehicles. The European Ocean Observing System (EOOS) is designed to align and integrate Europe’s ocean observing capacity, promote a systematic and collaborative approach to collecting information on the state and variability of our seas, and underpin sustainable management of the marine environment and its resources. EOOS attempts to link the currently disparate observing system components and promote novel technology and infrastructure development, standardization, open access to data, and capacity building. Within the framework of EOOS is the EU-funded EuroSea project, with the overall goal to consolidate an integrated interdisciplinary ocean-observing-system to deliver essential information for the wellbeing, blue growth and sustainable management of the ocean, based on the implementation and coordination of the different observing networks above-mentioned, being the Uncrewed Surface Vehicles (USV) technology one of the novelties in terms of network initiative attempting to engage existing and forthcoming actors from public and private sectors, to consolidate an international USV network under common standard operational procedures and regulatory framework in support to EOOS strategy.Peer Reviewe

Regional differences in modelled net production and shallow remineralization in the North Atlantic subtropical gyre

© The Author(s), 2012. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Biogeosciences 9 (2012): 2831-2846, doi:10.5194/bg-9-2831-2012.We used 5-yr concomitant data of tracer distribution from the BATS (Bermuda Time-series Study) and ESTOC (European Station for Time-Series in the Ocean, Canary Islands) sites to build a 1-D tracer model conservation including horizontal advection, and then compute net production and shallow remineralization rates for both sites. Our main goal was to verify if differences in these rates are consistent with the lower export rates of particulate organic carbon observed at ESTOC. Net production rates computed below the mixed layer to 110 m from April to December for oxygen, dissolved inorganic carbon and nitrate at BATS (1.34±0.79 mol O2 m−2, −1.73±0.52 mol C m−2 and −125±36 mmol N m−2) were slightly higher for oxygen and carbon compared to ESTOC (1.03±0.62 mol O2 m−2, −1.42±0.30 mol C m−2 and −213±56 mmol N m−2), although the differences were not statistically significant. Shallow remineralization rates between 110 and 250 m computed at ESTOC (−3.9±1.0 mol O2 m−2, 1.53±0.43 mol C m−2 and 38±155 mmol N m−2) were statistically higher for oxygen compared to BATS (−1.81±0.37 mol O2 m−2, 1.52±0.30 mol C m−2 and 147±43 mmol N m−2). The lateral advective flux divergence of tracers, which was more significant at ESTOC, was responsible for the differences in estimated oxygen remineralization rates between both stations. According to these results, the differences in net production and shallow remineralization cannot fully explain the differences in the flux of sinking organic matter observed between both stations, suggesting an additional consumption of non-sinking organic matter at ESTOC.B. Mourino was supported by the Ramon y Cajal program from the Spanish Minister of Science and Technology. Funding for this study was provided by the Xunta de Galicia under the research project VARITROP (09MDS001312PR, PI B. Mourino) and by the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovation MOMAC project (CTM2008-05914/MAR)

Fixed and drifting buoys around the national Spanish waters

Joint Technical Commission for Oceanography and Marine Meteorology (JCOMM) Marine Technical Conference, The Technical Conference (TECO) Toward an Integrated Met-ocean Monitoring, Forecasting and Services System, 25-29 October 2017, Geneva, SwitzerlandImproving the knowledge of the ocean and seas surrounding the Iberian Peninsula and Balearic and Canary islands is an objective of the Spanish oceanography. For that purpose, a number of fixed and drifting floats have been established in the last 25 years. Data buoys measure sea surface temperature and salinity, ocean current velocity, air temperature, humidity, wave characteristic and wind velocity across seas and ocean. The objective is increase the quantity, quality, coverage and timeliness of atmospheric and oceanographic data. These observations are used immediately to improve forecast and therefore increase marine safety. The main group of fixed buoys is formed by the Puertos del Estado deep and shallow buoy networks, but a series of well instrumented new platforms has been established in later times. The RAIA Project (Xunta de Galicia), PLOCAN, SOCIB, IEO, Euskalmet-AZTI, ICM and UTM (CSIC) and University and Polytechnic of Barcelona have completed the Observing System. Most of the buoys are transmitting data by GTS for using in atmospheric and ocean prediction models. Multidisciplinary sensors as Dissolved Oxygen, Fluorescence Chlorophyll or pCO2 has been mounted in the buoys and calibration/validation procedures has been developed for improve data quality. Antifouling systems recently developed have also been included and quality of the optical sensors measurements has improved. Drifting floats has increase its number and importance, from Argo floats to traditional deriving ones improving the Spanish contribution to IOC and WWO and JCOMM. Spain is member of EuroArgo ERIC. SOCIB and IEO are the main contributors. Also multidisciplinary work has been done associated to Argo buoys. BGQ ARGO incorporate O2 sensor. ICM, SMOS Barcelona Expert Center, and SOCIB are the main contributors to the drifting buoys group. Main objectives are improving Technological development as well as data management. Tropical and Southern Atlantic Ocean are the main studying areasPeer Reviewe

Decadal analysis of hydrography and in situ nutrient budgets in the western and eastern North Atlantic subtropical gyre

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2007. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research 112 (2007): C07025, doi:10.1029/2006JC003788.The current debate about the mechanisms and magnitude of new nutrient input to the euphotic zone in subtropical gyres calls for studies which consider large and mesoscale perspectives by combining in situ time series and remote observations. We carried out a first of its kind comparative analysis of hydrography and sea level anomaly (SLA) at the oligotrophic time series stations BATS (Bermuda Atlantic Time Series Study) and ESTOC (European Station for Time Series, Canary Islands) using concomitant 10-yr in situ and satellite altimetry data. The stations are located at about the same latitude in the western and eastern boundaries of the subtropical North Atlantic gyre, respectively, and provide the opportunity to study differences that may exist between both regions. Observed SLA was 0.25 m at BATS, compared with 0.12 m at ESTOC, a consequence of the higher eddy kinetic energy in the western compared with the eastern subtropical gyre. We quantified a detailed in situ nutrient budget for both time series stations; ESTOC received about 75% of the nutrients available for new production at BATS (in average 0.28 mol N m−2 yr−1 compared with 0.38 mol N m−2 yr−1, respectively), but the difference was not significant. However, significant differences in input mechanisms existed between both stations; eddy pumping constituted the main new nutrient source BATS, whereas wintertime convection was the main nutrient supply mechanism at ESTOC. In addition, the nutricline was significantly shallower at ESTOC compared with BATS, partly compensating for shallower mixed-layer depths and SLA variability at the western station. We found considerable interannual variability in both eddy pumping and wintertime convection which may be related to NAO-induced changes in the pattern of the subtropical gyre.This work was supported by a NASA-EOS grant to Susanne Neuer

The EMSO Generic Instrument Module (EGIM): Standardized and interoperable instrumentation for ocean observation

The oceans are a fundamental source for climate balance, sustainability of resources and life on Earth, therefore society has a strong and pressing interest in maintaining and, where possible, restoring the health of the marine ecosystems. Effective, integrated ocean observation is key to suggesting actions to reduce anthropogenic impact from coastal to deep-sea environments and address the main challenges of the 21st century, which are summarized in the UN Sustainable Development Goals and Blue Growth strategies. The European Multidisciplinary Seafloor and water column Observatory (EMSO), is a European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC), with the aim of providing long-term observations via fixed-point ocean observatories in key environmental locations across European seas from the Arctic to the Black Sea. These may be supported by ship-based observations and autonomous systems such as gliders. In this paper, we present the EMSO Generic Instrument Module (EGIM), a deployment ready multi-sensor instrumentation module, designed to measure physical, biogeochemical, biological and ecosystem variables consistently, in a range of marine environments, over long periods of time. Here, we describe the system, features, configuration, operation and data management. We demonstrate, through a series of coastal and oceanic pilot experiments that the EGIM is a valuable standard ocean observation module, which can significantly improve the capacity of existing ocean observatories and provides the basis for new observatories. The diverse examples of use included the monitoring of fish activity response upon oceanographic variability, hydrothermal vent fluids and particle dispersion, passive acoustic monitoring of marine mammals and time series of environmental variation in the water column. With the EGIM available to all the EMSO Regional Facilities, EMSO will be reaching a milestone in standardization and interoperability, marking a key capability advancement in addressing issues of sustainability in resource and habitat management of the oceans

A compilation of global bio-optical in situ data for ocean-colour satellite applications - version three

A global in situ data set for validation of ocean colour products from the ESA Ocean Colour Climate Change Initiative (OC-CCI) is presented. This version of the compilation, starting in 1997, now extends to 2021, which is important for the validation of the most recent satellite optical sensors such as Sentinel 3B OLCI and NOAA-20 VIIRS. The data set comprises in situ observations of the following variables: spectral remote-sensing reflectance, concentration of chlorophyll-a, spectral inherent optical properties, spectral diffuse attenuation coefficient, and total suspended matter. Data were obtained from multi-project archives acquired via open internet services or from individual projects acquired directly from data providers. Methodologies were implemented for homogenization, quality control, and merging of all data. Minimal changes were made on the original data, other than conversion to a standard format, elimination of some points, after quality control and averaging of observations that were close in time and space. The result is a merged table available in text format. Overall, the size of the data set grew with 148 432 rows, with each row representing a unique station in space and time (cf. 136 250 rows in previous version; Valente et al., 2019). Observations of remote-sensing reflectance increased to 68 641 (cf. 59 781 in previous version; Valente et al., 2019). There was also a near tenfold increase in chlorophyll data since 2016. Metadata of each in situ measurement (original source, cruise or experiment, principal investigator) are included in the final table. By making the metadata available, provenance is better documented and it is also possible to analyse each set of data separately. The compiled data are available at https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.941318 (Valente et al., 2022)

Evolving and sustaining ocean best practices and standards for the next decade

The oceans play a key role in global issues such as climate change, food security, and human health. Given their vast dimensions and internal complexity, efficient monitoring and predicting of the planet’s ocean must be a collaborative effort of both regional and global scale. A first and foremost requirement for such collaborative ocean observing is the need to follow well-defined and reproducible methods across activities: from strategies for structuring observing systems, sensor deployment and usage, and the generation of data and information products, to ethical and governance aspects when executing ocean observing. To meet the urgent, planet-wide challenges we face, methods across all aspects of ocean observing should be broadly adopted by the ocean community and, where appropriate, should evolve into “Ocean Best Practices.” While many groups have created best practices, they are scattered across the Web or buried in local repositories and many have yet to be digitized. To reduce this fragmentation, we introduce a new open access, permanent, digital repository of best practices documentation (oceanbestpractices.org) that is part of the Ocean Best Practices System (OBPS). The new OBPS provides an opportunity space for the centralized and coordinated improvement of ocean observing methods. The OBPS repository employs user-friendly software to significantly improve discovery and access to methods. The software includes advanced semantic technologies for search capabilities to enhance repository operations. In addition to the repository, the OBPS also includes a peer reviewed journal research topic, a forum for community discussion and a training activity for use of best practices. Together, these components serve to realize a core objective of the OBPS, which is to enable the ocean community to create superior methods for every activity in ocean observing from research to operations to applications that are agreed upon and broadly adopted across communities. Using selected ocean observing examples, we show how the OBPS supports this objective. This paper lays out a future vision of ocean best practices and how OBPS will contribute to improving ocean observing in the decade to come

A compilation of global bio-optical in situ data for ocean colour satellite applications – version three

A global in situ data set for validation of ocean colour products from the ESA Ocean Colour Climate Change Initiative (OC-CCI) is presented. This version of the compilation, starting in 1997, now extends to 2021, which is important for the validation of the most recent satellite optical sensors such as Sentinel 3B OLCI and NOAA-20 VIIRS. The data set comprises in situ observations of the following variables: spectral remote-sensing reflectance, concentration of chlorophyll-a, spectral inherent optical properties, spectral diffuse attenuation coefficient, and total suspended matter. Data were obtained from multi-project archives acquired via open internet services or from individual projects acquired directly from data providers. Methodologies were implemented for homogenization, quality control, and merging of all data. Minimal changes were made on the original data, other than conversion to a standard format, elimination of some points, after quality control and averaging of observations that were close in time and space. The result is a merged table available in text format. Overall, the size of the data set grew with 148 432 rows, with each row representing a unique station in space and time (cf. 136 250 rows in previous version; Valente et al., 2019). Observations of remote-sensing reflectance increased to 68 641 (cf. 59 781 in previous version; Valente et al., 2019). There was also a near tenfold increase in chlorophyll data since 2016. Metadata of each in situ measurement (original source, cruise or experiment, principal investigator) are included in the final table. By making the metadata available, provenance is better documented and it is also possible to analyse each set of data separately. The compiled data are available at https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.941318 (Valente et al., 2022)