Marine Institute Ireland Water Chemistry Research Vessel Surveys North East Atlantic Ocean 1990 - Present

Two annual ship surveys are undertaken by the Chemistry Section of the Marine Institute Ireland - the Winter Environmental Survey (WES) on board the RV Celtic Voyager and The Ocean Climate Survey on board the RV Celtic Explorer. The WES circumnavigates the Island of Ireland every two years, alternating southabout and northabout, starting in the Irish Sea and ending in Galway. The WES collects multidisciplinary information on physical conditions (temperature, salinity), water chemistry (dissolved nutrients, total alkalinity (TA), dissolved organic carbon (DIC) and salinity), sediment chemistry (persistent organic pollutants POPs and trace metals). This contributes to data collection needs of various statutory drivers (WFD and the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) Directive 2008/56/EC), OSPAR assessments and provides a dataset on status and changing conditions (trends and variations) for key environmental variables. The annual Marine Institute ocean climate survey in the south Rockall Trough collects the following data: • Physical oceanographic data down to depths >3500 m (temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen (DO) and fluorescence) • Water samples are analysed on-board for some essential climate variables (salinity, DO, nutrients). • Samples are also taken for later analyses of carbonate chemistry (DIC/TA) to investigate ocean acidification, and CFCs (Chlorofluorocarbons )to help study ocean circulation. • pCO2 data in real-time using the CE GlobalOceanics underway system The data collected on this survey is important nationally because it allows the assessment of physical and biogeochemical changes in the ocean and the data contributes to international efforts such as ICES (The International Council for the Exploration of the Sea) and OSPAR (Oslo Paris Convention for the Protection of the North East Atlantic). None