Galway Bay Cable Observatory - CTD time-series

The Galway Bay Subsea observatory was installed in 2015 on the seafloor in the Galway Bay Marine and Renewable Energy Test Site, which is an area 1.5km off Spiddal pier and is used primarily to test small-scale ocean energy devices. The observatory uses cameras, probes and sensors to permit continuous and remote live underwater monitoring. This observatory equipment will allow ocean energy developers to monitor how their devices are performing in the ocean as well as give ocean researchers unique real-time access to monitor ongoing changes in the marine environment. Data relating to the marine environment at the site are now being transferred in real-time from the Galway Bay Observatory to the Marine Institute headquarters and onwards onto the internet. The data currently includes a live video stream, the depth of the observatory node, the sea temperature and salinity, and estimates of the chlorophyll and turbidity levels in the water which give an indication of the volume of phytoplankton and other particles, such as sediment, in the water. The data platform for the Galway Bay Observatory has been built using Big Data technology, so that when new instruments are plugged into the cable system it is straightforward to include the new data streams into the system. The real-time underwater video footage and all the data from the various sensors and instruments is continuously refreshed and displayed online. The web-viewer can be accessed using the Google Chrome web browser at: http://smartbay.marine.ie.