Long-term time series sites - OceanSITES

  

Brief history:

 

OceanSITES is a network of long-term buoy and ship stations collecting multidisciplinary ocean data from the full-depth water column to the overlying atmosphere. The growing network consists of about 60 surface and more than 200 subsurface instruments monitoring the global ocean.

  

Description:

OceanSITES stations offer stable platforms on which scientists can install a wide range of instruments. These moorings are anchored to the sea floor and stay in place for a year or more between maintenance visits. During that time, their cargo of instruments collects and stores a large volume of observations. Some moorings are able to transmit observations to shore via satellites, others record their observations inside the instruments memory.

Data collected:

• Meteorological data (precipitation, wind speed and direction, humidity, etc.)
• Physical oceanographic data (current speed and direction, water temperature, salinity, etc.)
•  Biogeochemistry data (nutrients, organic sediments, dissolved inorganic carbon, etc.)
• Biological data (phytoplankton, zooplankton, fish stocks, etc.)
• Ecosystem and geophysical parameters (seismic movements, magnetism, etc.)

Societal applications:

• Weather forecasts and early warnings (hurricanes, tsunamis, etc.)
• Large-scale climate fluctuations
• Monitoring of ocean production for stock management
• Etc.

  

If you want to learn more about this program, visit the website: http://www.oceansites.org/