Processing of sea glider data south of the Maltese islands

Abstract

In the absence of readily available tools which allow one to compare glider data with other oceanographic data sources, this work focuses on the design of a glider data processing platform, called the Sea Glider Data Platform (SGDP), intended to process glider data from its raw state, and to subsequently integrate the processed data with other sources of oceanographic data. In addition to the design, the work presented in this dissertation also provides the blueprints for this data processing platform by implementing algorithms, and testing them using decimated glider data collected during a mission in the Central Mediterranean conducted between April and June 2017, as part of a project called GLIDER South. This project is led by the Physical Oceanography Research Group within the University of Malta in collaboration with the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) within the JERICO-NEXT Trans-National Access activity. Other data sources are also used to test the integration of processed glider data with: other in situ observations; remote satellite observations; and numerical model data. In addition, some of the tools used in this project, were also deployed in a web application called the Glider Data Viewer (GDV). This application currently allows users to view plots of the GLIDER South decimated data processed after the deployment’s termination, by allowing them to extract subsets of data, and plotting only data for the required time period, and the desired parameter. However, this web interface is not intended to solely serve the purpose of providing data visualisation for the GLIDER South project, but also for similar projects occurring in the coming future. This application is also envisaged to grow, with the further inclusion of other dashboards, which enable users to view comparisons between glider data, and data retrieved from other sources. Work carried out as part of this dissertation, also provides a solid basis for these future additions. The key aim therefore, is not to provide any detailed assessments of the GLIDER South data, and as such, this work is not intended to be an oceanographic study of the characteristics of the survey area. In fact, the purpose of this work is to use the GLIDER South project as an enabling exercise, for the development of data processing and integration tools, which can be used in a wider context.