| Short name of participant: | Name of the infrastructure: |
| NIVA | NorFerry |
| Web site address: | Location: |
| http://www.niva.no | Baltic, North Sea, Atlantic Sea and Arctic areas. |
Description of the infrastructure:
The NorFerry infrastructure covers a network of 5 Ferrybox-systems in the Baltic, North Sea, Atlantic Sea and Arctic areas:
- Installation 1: MS Color Fantasy (FA), S Baltic Sea and North Sea, 54.33 N,10.15 E to 59.91 N, 10.71 E
- Installation 2: MS Trollfjord (TF), N Atlantic and Barents Sea, 60.39 N, 5.32 E to 69.74 N, 30.05 E
- Installation 3: MS Norbjørn (NB), Arctic Sea – Barents Sea, 69.66 N, 19.00 E to 78.26 N, 15.55 E
- Installation 4: MS Oslofjord (OF), North Sea, N Skagerrak, 59.13 N, 10.23 E to 58.94 N 11.17 E
- Installation 5: MS Norønna (NO), North Sea and N Atlantic Sea, 57.58 N, 9.96 E to 65.26 N, -14.00 E
In the North Sea (FA, OF, NO) the Ferryboxes (FB) are installed on Ferries, on the Norwegian coast (TF) we use the coastal steamer. For the NB ferrybox we use a cargo ship which will be reinstalled on a new ship at the end of 2014. All FB systems have core sensors with thermosalinograph, inlet temperature sensor, oxygen, Chl-a fluorescence, turbidity and systems for water sampling. One ship (FA) has the additional fluorescence sensor of PAH, Pycocyanin and cDOM and a passive sampling system. Three of the systems (FA, TF, NB) will have spectrophotometric pH and a membrane based pCO2 system end of 2014, and two (FA, TF) has radiometers and one ship (TF) has true wind sensors for improving the calculation of marine reflectance of the sea surface. On the ferries the FB data are transferred daily via internet communication to a NIVA database as part of MyOcean. For the cargo ship installation the data are transferred less frequently. The measuring frequencies for the same area are daily for FA and OF, weekly for NO and NB and biweekly for TF (11 days return trip). With 1 minute datalogging approximately every 3-500 m along the ship track are measured. The infrastructure is used for physical, pelagic biodiversity, chemical (contaminants) and biogeochemical (marine acidification) studies. The NorFerry infrastructure is unique as the fleet of Ferryboxes cover a latitude range from 54°N to 78°N with very different salinities and temperature regimes, and measures in ArcticRoos, NOOS and partly BOOS area It has also the passive sampling system and above water reflectance measurements which are unique in Europe, as well as spectrophotometric pH and membrane based pCO2 systems.
Services currently offered by the infrastructure: The infrastructure is available for researchers to conduct research on eutrophication, biodiversity, contaminants, chemistry and biogeochemistry. The network has been used in marine monitoring around the coast (WFD), sensor testing and developments for marine acidification (JERICO), satellite product validation (ESA) and are part of several new FP7 sensor projects. The users will be given access to sensor data measured on-board and that are on-line after the QC has been performed (temp., salinity, oxygen, Chl-a Fluorescence, turbidity) and biogeochemical data when available). Data will be uploaded from daily (near real-time) to weekly access on some of the ships.
Support offered under this proposal: The user can access support from NIVA researchers or technical staff, and data will be quality controlled.
Outreach to new users: An information system will be investigated to be set up for passengers on the ferries. Norferry is also used by the satellite community ESA for validation and is well known in this user group. It is also used in EU FP-7 projects outside JERICO: HighROC and AquaUSERS (satellite),the sensor projects NeXOS and FP- MariaBOX and probably the Sea-on-a-ship project.. Through more EU projects and publications the NorFerry will increase the numbers of users.
