Patí a Vela As an Oceanographic Platform

VII Encuentro de Oceanografía Física (EOF) - Expanding Ocean Frontiers Conference, VIII International Symposium on Marine Sciences, 6-8 July 2022, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, España

The coastline of big cities such as Barcelona are affected by meteorological events and by the anthropogenic influence. Despite the easy access to the marine environment, coastal waters are undersampled both in time and space [1], due the difficulty of setting oceanographic platforms that can carry out continuous sampling next to the coastline and because of the limited accuracy and spatiotemporal resolution of satellites in the shelf waters. In order to improve this lack of sampling, we propose a local strategy for monitoring the Barcelona inner-shelf waters with the participation of sailors that use the patí a vela (PV), a sailing recreational boat widely used in Catalonia. We present the adaptation of the PV with a low-cost temperature profiler to turn it into an oceanographic sampling platform, the scientific patí a vela (SPV). First, the good performance of the lowcost temperature profile has been confirmed through a favorable comparison with a commercial oceanographic instrument. Second, the temperature profile data within an area of about 3 km x 3 km, in the sea from the Barcelona coastline to about 40 m, for the summerfall of 2021 are presented. Finally, the results obtained through 15 sampling are used to explore the response of the water column to specific meteorological events. The temperature-depth profiles show that the mixed-layer depth increases and the overall temperature depth-gradient decreases from summer to fall. SPV turns out to be an inexpensive and maneuverable oceanographic platform, therefore SPV can grow as an inclusive and collaborative citizen science platform that will provide an improved monitoring and understanding of the inner continental shelf, particularly near densely populated areas. It also provides the necessary knowledge of natural and anthropogenic seasonality

We are very grateful to the Barcelona City Council for their support through projects PATÍ CIENTIFIC (Pla Barcelona Ciència 2019, ref. 19SO1645-006, 19SO1649-006, 19SO1651-006) and AULAMAR (Fundació Bit Habitat, ref. ID253)

Peer reviewed