Ocean Observing Systems on Board Fishing and Cargo Vessels

The Portuguese Ocean Observing Program (OBSERVA.PT) under development at IPMA is presented. The activities started to be funded under two main projects: OBSERVA.PT that aims to implement appropriate technologies for monitoring the marine environment for the operational production of marine meteorological and oceanographic information. Meteorological and oceanographical equipment are being installed on cargo vessels, en route between Portugal Mainland and Madeira, Azores, and Cape Verde (NE Atlantic), as well as in fishing vessel; and OBSERVA.FISH that aims to develop a fully autonomous system to be installed on all types of fishing vessels, integrating various meteorological, oceanographical, and vessels behavior parameters. We will show the first results of the installation of a “ferrybox”-type (Undersee_water) equipment in a cod trawler vessel during her route from Portugal Mainland to the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. The “ferrybox” measured continuously temperature, salinity, chlorophyll, dissolved oxygen, pH, and turbidity from water pumped from the surface. The installation in the cargo and fishing fleet will allow the collection of data with great spatial coverage and high temporal resolution, difficult to obtain with other observation platforms.