SERVICE ACTIVITY 17.1:
ESTOC – CENTRAL EAST ATLANTIC OCEAN ACIDIFICATION AND PRODUCTIVITY ASSESSMENT SERVICE
Relevance for external users & programs:
The ESTOC Observatory is a component of EuroSITES and EMSO, a CO2 monitoring station for ICOS and
thus contributes to several GEOSS tasks, including the monitoring of climate change and water quality.
Data are provided following international standards (NetCDF and SensorML) according to GEOSS data
sharing principles.
Web site address:
www.eurosites.info/estoc/data.php; www.whoi.edu/virtual/oceansites/data/index.html
Legal name of organization providing the service:
Oceanic Platform of the Canary Islands / PLOCAN
Location of organization:
Telde, Canary Islands, Spain
Annual operating costs of the service activity:
93,287 €
Services currently offered by the infrastructure:
The ESTOC observatory offers real-time / near real-time meteorological observations (atmospheric
pressure, relative humidity, air temperature, wind speed and direction) and observations of surface
oceanography (temperature, salinity, turbidity). Subsurface monitoring includes physical (temperature,
salinity) and biogeochemical (oxygen, nitrate and Chla) observations at different depths are made
available on-line in delayed mode. In situ data collected from cruises for testing and calibrating moored
sensors, available on-line as well as spatial and temporal representations for all data. In addition, three
gliders are used for measurements in the vicinity of the station (e.g., salinity, temperature, current,
turbidity, CDOM, chlorophyll-a, O2). are made available. Typically 4 seasonal missions of 15 days each
are performed per year. All data are quality checked and converted to standard units of measure
including standard error estimates. Data provided by the ESTOC observatory and the gliders are
essential to evaluate natural variation in long term trends of all measured phenomena including ocean
acidification, carbon fluxes, water quality, volcanic tremor, etc.
Examples of publications based on data obtained by the infrastructure:
González-Dávila, M. et al. (2010) BIOGEOSCIENCES, 3067-3081
Delory, E. et al. (2011) IEEE OCEANS, Santander, Spain
DESCRIPTION OF WORK
Modality of access under this proposal:
The service will be provided open access for 3 years (starting project month 7). Data will be provided
real-time or near real-time after formatting and data quality control. In cases where formatting and
quality control involves human intervention data will be released with an approximate delay of 2-3
months. All data will be discoverable, searchable and downloadable from on-line catalogues and
provided open-access.
Support offered under this proposal:
Standardized data quality control, formatting, and OGC real-time services are applied to (1) data streams
of upper ocean CO2 and pH for carbon sink and carbonate system / ocean acidification, and (2) data
streams for O2, Chl-a and Nutrients for ocean productivity assessment.
Outreach of new users:
ESTOC Observatory services’ outreach material will be synthesized and uploaded to the FixO3 web
portal. The enhancement of the data services under FixO3 (implementation of QC and standard
formatting according to SeaDataNet to facilitate use for the assessment of the state of the ocean at this
strategic site; provision of standard formatted, machine readable data in near real-time for
incorporation into operational models (e.g., myOcean). These improvements are expected to
significantly increase the use of the data produced at the ESTOC location. Services will be registered
through GEOSS component and service registry, further facilitating use by a broader audience.
SERVICE ACTIVITY 17.2:
ESTOC – SEAFLOOR SEISMICS AND SOUNDSCAPE ASSESSMENT SERVICE
Relevance for external users & programs:
The ESTOC Observatory is relevant for the EMSO and EuroSITES community. ESTOC contributes to
several GEOSS SBAs, especially “Disasters” (by monitoring of geohazards including earthquakes, volcanic
eruptions, and submarine slides around the Canaries). Data products are provided in agreement with
international standards according to GEOSS principles (SensorML, OGC Sensor Observation Service
implemented in 2012).
Web site address:
Joint PLOCAN-CSIC data portal for ESTOC data dissemination is currently under development
www.utm.csic.es/ (information on seismic-acoustic monitoring)
Legal name of organization providing the service:
Agencia Estatal Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, CSIC
(as TP of Participant 7, PLOCAN)
Location of organizatin:
Madrid, Spain
Annual operating costs of the service activity:
51,410 €
Services currently offered by the infrastructure:
The ESTOC seafloor instrumentation consists of an Ocean Bottom Seismometer with three components
and a hydrophone to record data from seafloor vertical motions, and to characterize oceanic ambient
noise like local tremors from the Canary Islands volcanic archipelago, possibly hydrothermal activity in
this deep ocean basin where seismic coverage is scarce, and low to medium frequency soundscapes. All
data products and metadata are, as a baseline, encoded in an open-standard format, in agreement with
GEOSS recommendations and interoperability guidelines.
Examples of publications based on data obtained by the infrastructure:
Del Río, J. & Delory, E. (2010) EARTHZINE, September 14th, 2010
L. Bermudez et al. (2009) MTS/IEEE OCEANS; MARINE TECHNOLOGY FOR OUR FUTURE: GLOBAL AND
LOCAL CHALLENGES, 1–7
DESCRIPTION OF WORK
Modality of access under this proposal:
Duration of service: 3 years (starting project month 7). Service data will be discoverable, searchable and
downloadable from on-line catalogues. Data products will be uploaded to server annually and open
access.
CSIC will provide SA 17.2 as Third Party (TP) of PLOCAN and hence will receive the corresponding funds
as detailed in the SA cost calculation sheets.
Support offered under this proposal:
The service provides seismic assessment and ocean soundscape features such as sound intensity and
spectrum. Natural variation in long term trends of all measured phenomena including ocean noise and
seafloor motions are evaluated. In year 3 of the project a broadband (120-240 s) OBS will be
implemented in order to assess its potential to find patterns of the local seismicity, mainly from volcanic
sources. This additional service can further be used to provide constraints on the deeper crust and
mantle structure from teleseismic earthquakes.
The service includes standard data Quality Control and formatting.
Outreach of new users:
ESTOC Observatory services outreach material will be synthesized and uploaded to the FixO3 web
portal. The enhancement of the data services under FixO3 (implementation of QC and standard
formatting according to SeaDataNet to facilitate use for the assessment of the state of the ocean at this
strategic site; provision of standard formatted, machine readable data in near real-time for
incorporation into operational models (e.g., myOcean). These improvements are expected to
significantly increase the use of the data produced at the ESTOC location. Services will be registered
through GEOSS component and service registry, further facilitating use by a broader audience.