Ocean Reference Stations

Abstract

OceanSITES is an international network of deep ocean observatories that provide reference time-series for ocean and climate studies. While moorings form the backbone of the network, some stations comprise frequent shipboard observations. With dozens of advanced sensors on these platforms, the time-series are high quality, high resolution (hourly or better in many cases), and long (decades long in some cases). Most stations are interdisciplinary, measuring various aspects of the physical and biogeochemical environment from the sea floor to the atmosphere. All data are made publicly available, in a common format, many in near-real time. In this chapter we describe the motivation for, and the requirements and challenges of this network. Because the network includes more than 105 stations, for practical reasons, our overview of individual stations will focus on the subset of stations that make data available in near-real time. Our goal here is to provide an introduction to the network and provide information and links that will help the reader explore the network further.