SOCIB / Observing facilities

Coastal Ocean Research Vessel

The Coastal Research Vessel facility is a fast 24 m catamaran, equipped for modern, multidiscipline ocean science, and capable of sustained operations of up to 7 days at sea. Is a regional and European asset, available for external users as part of the Spanish oceanographic fleet, offering labs, a suite of oceanographic equipment and the opportunity to reduce costs through reducing mission length.

Costal HF Radar facility

Surface currents are identified as a high priority product for coastal ocean observing systems. Shore-based high-frequency (HF) radars that broadcast and then observe back-scattered radio signals from the oceans surface are now a mature technology that has been implemented and is routinely operating in numerous locations worldwide.

Gliders facility

Gliders allows the autonomous and sustained collection of CTD data and biogeochemical measurements (fluorescence, oxygen, etc) at high spatial resolutions (1 km) and at low costs compared to conventional methods.

Lagrangian platforms (Argo and surface drifter)

The global array of Argo floats has been demonstrated  to be one of the major components of the Global Climate Observing System/Global Ocean Observing System (GCOS/GOOS). It provides a quantitative description of the changing state of the upper ocean and the patterns of ocean climate variability, from months to decades, including heat and freshwater storage and transport.

Fixed Stations facility

The development of new technologies has allowed us currently to have sensors capable of recording a wide range of parameters, with capabilities to control biofouling (reduces maintenance costs and enables year round continuous operations) and platforms to integrate sever sensors together.

Beach Monitoring facility

The Marine and Terrestrial Beach Monitoring Facility will consist of Modular Beach Integral Monitoring Systems (MOBIMS) which will enable the autonomous and sustained collection of physical data on hydrodynamics and sediment transport.