The calibration facilities include a fully equipped Laboratory with a special designed large calibration tank, two smaller glass tanks and a number of reference sensors and equipment for temperature, salinity, chlorophyll-a, turbidity and dissolved oxygen sensors calibration.
Data have been collected during the POSEIDON network operation and are easily accessible through a web interface to the system's database. The database is updating on a daily basis offering full access both to archived and recent data. The user has also access to multiple metadata information regarding the buoys sensors, location, operational period and other combined information.
The cabled ocean observatory system is a seabed oceanographic observatory connecting a shore station to an undersea node with power and data-transfer capabilities. This node allow us to create a net of sensors providing data from the bottom to the upper layer of the water column. Thus, scientists have the possibility to deploy, recover and redeploy the registered sensors in order to receive insitu observations in near real time for long with the maximum possible sample size.
Fixed moorings is an oceanographic onshore or offshore platform. A fixed mooring consists of steel wire or synthetic rope which holds the registered sensors and associated with one or more buoys to provide sufficient buoyancy to keep the mooring upright.
The name Argo was chosen to emphasize the strong complementary relationship of the global float array with the Jason1 and Jason2 satellite altimeter mission in order to observe the climatology of the air-sea interaction. In Greek mythology Jason sailed in a ship called "Argo" to capture the golden fleece. Together the Argo and Jason data sets will be assimilated into computer models developed by project GODAE (Global Ocean Data Assimilation Experiment) that will allow a test of our ability to forecast ocean climate.
The HF radar is a shore-based radar covering a wide range of the sea surface and mainly monitoring surface waves and currents of the ocean providing in high spatiotemporal resolution data. In any case, HF radar is a low cost instrument not only by the maintenance but also by the operation.
Ocean gliders are autonomous underwater vehicles used for ocean science. They travel in the sea water by changing their buoyancy and attitude in order to successively dive up and down in order to sample the sea water and collect oceanographic data. Gliders typically profile in a saw tooth pattern from the surface to 500-1000 m depth, travelling 3-6 km in the horizontal at a speed of about 1 km/h in every dive cycle.
Tide gauge is an oceanographic instrument measuring changes of the sea level. Changes of the sea level play an important role in our environment changes especially at the coastal zone. Tide gauges are an important tool in order to determine trends in mean sea level and extreme conditions, which are linked to the climate change, tidal computation, geodetic applications, harbour operations and navigation. Thus, continuous monitoring of sea level changes is necessary.
FerryBox is an operational method to continuously measure physical, chemical and biological parameters on board of ships-of-opportunity. FerryBox is a through-flow system installed on board of a ship-of-opportunity (ferry, cargo ship or research vessel) providing data of important marine parameters in near real time. The sensors installed offer the opportunity to measure salinity, temperature, pH, CO2, and dissolved oxygen.
Ocean and Weather Forecasting systems use mathematical models in order to describe ocean and weather systems by using numerical methods. Numerical methods are made by assimilating the dynamic, energy, physical processes of the ocean and the atmosphere. Assimilation models provide short term forecast for atmospheric, wave and hydrodynamic conditions of the marine environment. The institute of Oceanography, HCMR in provides an open access to the following forecasting systems: