Western Channel Observatory Blog

Just to let you know that Quest is steaming back as I type.  The buoy has been picked up; it looks in a bit of a bad way (battery box connectors gone, suspected fire in one of the instrument boxes) but the instruments and data logger are intact.  You can check Quest’s progress on:

http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/default.aspx?mmsi=235017045&zoom=10

Thanks to everyone for all of their efforts in getting this back – and especially to James for showing great drive and leadership in getting the problem sorted.  Special mention also to Stephane for getting the delicate language barrier issues removed!

We look to be in a good position now to continue the E1 experience with the new collaboration with the Met Office.

Whilst trying to explain to my children the story of how we managed to find the E1 buoy, we decided to make various Lego models and re-enact the whole sequence of events. Whilst the story is an accurate retelling of the situation a little imagination has been used for the ending as at the time of posting we are still organising the trip to collect the buoy.

Please click the link below to open the pdf document:

 E1 Buoy recovery

We can now get DOIs for our data submissions to BODC – this is something that we have been pushing for.

Please find attached a document template and a data file header. If those involved in the WCO data could each aggregate into one file all of their data up to the end of 2011 and complete appropriate sections of the document prior to submitting the data to BODC, this should then meet the requirements for us to be able to issue DOIs for each data set.

The new look web page now has two new additions.  Firstly a description of the benthic survey work, given by Ana Querios and Sarah Dashfield and secondly work on OVOCs kindly provided by Rachael Beale and Jo Dixon.  It is hoped that we can continually update the material on the website to make it fresh and appealing.  This was one failing of the old website which was very much a utilitarian data page.  It is hoped that we can have a fairly high level of scientific material on the web together with photos and other material.

Today marks the 235th day of the E1 buoy being continuously in the field and, more importantly, sending back data.  Quest, Sepia and Explorer are on their way out there to recover the E1 buoy before the onset of winter.  Opportunities like this are few and far between at a distance of 20 miles from the shore.  The operating plan is to exchange the E1 and L4 buoys over; the L4 buoy has been out of operation for nearly a month now with suspected power problems.  L4 will therefore be brought back to shore while the “E1″ buoy will start on day 236 of continual operation.  It is hoped we can repeat the feat of last year: continuous, through the winter operation at L4.

If you are logging on today to read this post (7th November) you can watch the progress of the 3 boats at:

http://www.shipais.com/currentmap.php?refresh=10&count=5&map=Plymouth

I was approached in July of this year by the editor of the Sea Technology magazine to write a feature article for the October issue.  This was based on a talk I gave at the Oceanology 2010 conference, which the editor had attended.  The article addresses the buoy project with specific reference to the technological development and successes of the systems we have produced here at PML. 

For more than 47 years, Sea Technology has been the ocean/marine industry’s consistently recognized authority for ocean design, engineering and application of equipment and services in the global ocean community.  It is the one and only monthly magazine proudly serving this multibillion dollar marketplace.  It has more domestic and worldwide “buying power” readers than any other magazine in its field with a distribution in over 110 countries.

If anybody wishes to read this article a copy of the sea technology magazine is available in the coffee room at PML, I also have the article in pdf format if you would prefer. 

Most people will be aware that the Plymouth Quest is fitted out with a comprehensive suite of scientific sensors.  These are measuring the following parameters every 10 seconds whist the vessel is underway: sea temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, attenuation, chlorophyll a fluorescence, turbidity, coloured dissolved organic matter (CDOM), Photosynthetically active radiation (PAR), air temperature, wind speed and direction and ships track (GPS).  All this data is displayed in real time on two monitors on the vessel, one in the wheel house and a weather proof one on deck.  This is intended to give those on board an overview of how representative the water mass they are sampling in is as well as being useful for bloom and front detection.  The data is also sent to PML where it is made available via the observatory website in a Google earth format.

Underway Sea Water sensors

Sea Water Temperature transect to E1

If you have any questions or your work would benefit from this dataset then please don’t hesitate to ask.

Having just returned from re-fit and her new paint job we took the opportunity of fine weather to take some pictures for corporate purposes.  Below of just a few examples, if anyone requires any images of the research vessels for posters, presentation etc. then please ask I have loads including kit deployment.

The presentations made at the various “Last Season” meetings are now available via the link:

https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B37pQShXeo4zZjk1NDJmMjktOTZhOS00OWIyLWIwNmYtYmI2MGZlMzgzOTFj&hl=en_US

These are not the individual science presentations – these may contain information that individual scientists may not want to be made publically available just yet.

Tim

WCO-Sampling-List

This is a list of the sampling that I do when at L4 and E1.

Enjoy the read!

Denise