A Review of the Regional Cabled Array in the Northeast Pacific

The Regional Cabled Array (RCA) in the Northeast Pacific has operated continuously since 2013. Here I present an analysis of the health and reliability of the hundreds of constituent RCA sensors: From profilers carrying CTD and biogeochemical sensors; to fixed-depth platforms; to hydrophones, sonar, ADCPs, seismometers, high-resolution cameras and more; each sensor with its own "data story" to tell. As a provider of oceanographic Big Data the RCA has two important challenges to address: Data veracity (reliability) and data access. The project has integrated a set of important technologies to make veracity and access more transparent. These include a web browser data visualization interface, cloud-based infrastructure, a Python library for data retrieval, and the open science Jupyter/GitHub/Binder/pangeo data science ecosystem. In addition to this infrastructure overview I present a comparative analysis: Agreement of RCA-intrinsic co-located sensors and external comparison: With MODIS surface chlorophyll estimates and nearest-neighbor ARGO water column profiles. This work is conceived as a first stage in development of a "scientist handbook" (Jupyter notebook collection) on what to expect from and how to work with RCA data.