Ten years of Glider School - Approaching novel ocean-monitoring technologies to marine science community users

Maria Jose Rueda1, Carlos Barrera2, Daniel Alcaraz1, Tania Morales1 and Octavio Llinás3, (1)Oceanic Platform of the Canary Islands, Telde, Spain, (2)Oceanic Platform of the Canary Islands, Underwater Vehicles, Telde, Spain, (3)Oceanic Platform of the Canary Islands, General Manager, Telde, Spain
Abstract:
Despite technology development addressed to ocean-monitoring has been significantly improved during last two decades with new platforms, sensors and telemetry systems, there are still many unsolved gaps in terms of data quality, reliability, efficiency and sustainability. Ocean glider technology offers a new approach in terms of monitoring capacity and sustainability, enabling to perform observations in spatiotemporal scales hitherto unavailable.

PLOCAN Glider School is a hands-on ocean-glider technology and training forum mainly addressed to ocean-glider technologies and their wide range of monitoring applications learning. Students and professionals from marine and maritime fields interested to learn on this specific and emerging autonomous ocean vehicle technology are truly welcome to join in. The PLOCAN Glider School is an initiative promoted by PLOCAN in line with international initiatives and programs like OceanGliders, EGO and EuroGOOS, that provides a state-of-the-art overview and the operational basis approach to this technology through theoretical and prac­tical teaching sessions in both wet-lab and open waters of Gran Canaria.

Leading corporate partners and key-reference research institutions across Europe and USA closely cooperate with the PLOCAN Glider School by teaching some of the didactical program contents, that includes as main topics (for each glider technology) a technology overview, nuts and bolts: how it works, mission setup and piloting, deployment and recovery in open waters, data management and applications, maintenance, etc.

The present work attempts to summarize the role and contribution of ten years of PLOCAN Glider School where more than a hundred forty attendees from thirty countries around have joined, in addition to the support by more than forty leading companies (as technology developers in this field) and institutions (as key end-users), highlighting the appearance of new user groups and the international glider-community growth.

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