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ARGO.PT: THE PORTUGUESE CONTRIBUTION TO THE ARGO PROGRAMME
Silveira, T.M.1,2, Carapuço, A.M.1,2, Martins, P.3, Parreira, P. 4, Teixeira, J.5, Piecho-Santos, A.M.1,6
Under the contribution of Portugal to the Argo Programme - ARGO.PT, the Portuguese Institute for the Sea and the Atmosphere (IPMA, I.P.) has acquired six Argo
floats funded by projects "Atlantic Observatory - Data and Monitoring Infrastructure" (funded by the EEA Grants Blue Growth programme) and "OBSERVA.PT -
Observations on board national commercial ships to support the conservation of marine biodiversity in the Portuguese Seas" (funded by Mar2020 programme).
These floats will integrate the global ocean observation network, which is an important component of the global ocean observing system, and include four core Argo
ARVOR-I floats equipped with CTD for conductivity, temperature and pressure measurements; one core Argo ARVOR-DO-I float equipped with an additional sensor
for dissolved oxygen (DO) measurements; and one full BGC Argo PROVOR CTS4 float equipped with six additional sensors (pH, DO, nitrate, chlorophyll a,
suspended particulates and, downwelling irradiance).
1 IPMA - Portuguese Institute for the Sea and the Atmosphere, Lisbon, Portugal
2IDL - Instituto Dom Luiz, Lisbon, Portugal
3 FCUL - Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal
4 IPS - Polytechnic Institute of Setúbal, Setúbal, Portugal
5 ADENE - Agency for Energy, Lisbon, Portugal
6 CCMAR - Centre of Marine Sciences, University of Algarve, Faro, Portugal
Spatial and temporal analysis of the
coverage of Argo cycles in the North-East
Atlantic, in the Portuguese maritime
territory, since the beginning of the Argo
global programme in 1998, shows that
there are temperature and salinity data,
with a frequency of at least 10 cycles per
cell of 1°lat x 1°long. There is a higher
concentration of Argo cycles in the
northeastern area of the study area,
north and west of Madeira Island and,
occasionally, southwest of Flores island in
the Azores archipelago.
The coverage analysis allowed to define the locations for deployment of the
6 floats in order to collect information in undersampled areas in the
national maritime territory. The Argo floats will be deployed from IPMA’s
research vessel Mário Ruivo during the first half of 2024 between mainland
Portugal and the Azores archipelago, as well as in the Gulf of Cadiz region.
Lower density of Argo data coverage occurs in the western half of the study
area, over the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and most of the area surrounding the
Azores archipelago, as well as in the Gulf of Cadiz region, south of
continental Portugal, and bordering the African coast.
BGC Argo PROVOR CTS4 and ARVOR-DO-I
floats from NKE-instrumentation
ARGO-PT will contribute to the global Argo Programme by
adding to the coverage of an important part of the Ocean,
and providing valuable data to study, for example, the
structure and pattern of the Mediterranean Water when
propagating through the North Atlantic, influencing ocean
circulation and climate, and in turn marine ecosystems.
Section along Latitude 39ºN, from Azores to
mainland Portugal, showing the distribution of
Mediterranean Water, detected by the practical
salinity parameter. Source: Argo data,
WebODV
.
500 NM
nº cycles