EurOCEAN 2000 - Vlaams Instituut voor de Zee

ADCP and line three mooring consists of fixed position sensors located in the first 100
meters (the euphotic zone). The fixed position sensors are CTDs irregularly spaced in
vertical, oxygen and turbidity sensors with the addition of chlorophyll (fluorescence),
PAR and nitrate sensors in certain positions. The air-sea interaction parameters and the
subsurface measurements are subsampled every hour and sent through GSM link to
the receiving land station, which releases the data in near real time and quality control
them. Data are put on the web within a day delay. These data will be initially used for
validation of the Ocean General Circulation Model (OGCM) and calibration of the one
dimensional ecosystem model for this near shelf area.
Fig. 1: The seven tracks of the VOS XBT system in the Mediterranean Sea. The star indicates
the position of the M3A buoy
The near real time analysis of satellite sea surface height anomalies and sea surface
temperatures is ensured on the internet for the entire Mediterranean Sea with a two days time
delay. The sea level anomalies are given both along satellite tracks (satellites are Topex
Poseidon and ERS-2) and mapped on the model regular grid. The sea surface temperature is
given as a weekly mean of night passes over the Mediterranean with values interpolated into
the model grid.
The data management system organizes multiple levels of quality control procedures and
provides the near real time dissemination to the research community via WWW and ftp
communication systems. The initial quality control system consists only of the detection of
extreme outliers with respect to climatology for all the near real time data sets. In fact it is
believed that the final quality control is made by the assimilation system which will feedback
possible reasons of data rejection to the observing data collection centers. For climate studies,
the full resolution VOS-XBT profiles, the M3A and satellite data are archived in conventional
historical data banks. The Web system used in the project has been found to be working
adequately making it possible to release a ten days forecast with a maximum delay of two days
with respect to the actual start day of the forecast (nowcast). Furthermore, it is the system that
462