This week there are news of interest for users of the Observatory. Next Wednesday the buoy will be removed from its mooring place for two reasons. First, general maintenance will be performed on the structure (review of wiring, sealing, make free space for ADCP and CTDs data, substitution of CTDs batteries, etc..).

The other purpose is a new challenge for us, from technological and scientific viewpoints: to install an underwater IP camera for transmitting photograms via 3G at the same time frequency as do the other instruments. In this way we can evaluate the behaviour and evolution of pelagic species approaching the observation station, in relation to environmental conditions.

Installing the camera will be possible due to the interest and financial support provided by a new partner of the Observatory: Dr. Ana Gordoa, researcher at CEAB. System deployment is the responsibility of Eduardo Muñoz, specialized technician (contractor) indispensable for the buoy functioning and maintenance. Nixon Bahamon, coordinator of the Observatory, will be responsible for this new operation.

There are various details that we have worked on so far in order to make the new observation system operational in near future. The system requires that every aspect of installation, operation, telemetry, automatic generation and publication downloads of images, must be implemented and tested properly. This implies that final inplementation still may take one to two months from now.

Other developments

The OOCS marine observatory makes synchronised recording, every 30 minutes, of a variety of data at a fixed point in the sea to be published in real time (every hour). Such records allow to identify and relate diverse marine weather and atmospheric events that may show high short-term variability. Some of these changes can be followed through the figures of data updated on hourly basis on this website. These changes are often commented via Twitter (twitter.com/#!/ceab_oocs) or via the microblogs (groups.google.com/group/mars-i-oceans) and are of public domain.

Some questions that arise and may be answered from acquired data, once analysed, are: When water stratification starts? When water destratification starts? How much time these processes last for? Are other events involved? How much the magnitude of variables changes? Is there oxygen surplus or deficiency?

Studing short-time variability of events like the above mentioned is a part of the objectives expected to be reached. Actually,, a number of research works incorporating information from the Observatory are now in progress. They all tackle diverse aspects dealing with column system (pelagic system) and sea bottom system (benthic system) dynamics. We will inform about news about them in due course.