Figure 1: By Instrument time series plot of Temperature from SeaBird CTD 16+ 5270 between September 2008 and May 2010.
Figure 2: Example of Saanich Inlet VENUS Instrument Platform (VIP) Study Area and SeaBird CTD deployments.
Figure 3: By Water Property time series plot of temperature from the VENUS Instrument Platform (VIP) study area from several SeaBird CTD’s (S/N’s 4996, 4997 and 5270) between September 2008 and May 2010.
Initially, our time series plots on the website were generated for each instrument and its sensors at a deployment site Figure 1). This method was the easiest to implement since our data are organized in the database by instrument and sensor. However, the scientific community expressed interest in observing a particular water property (like temperature) in an area (not a single point) over long time periods and it quickly became apparent that displaying ‘by instrument’ data plots was not good enough. Since we replace, redeploy and move instruments during each maintenance cruise, if we only display data ‘by instrument’, the time series will be interrupted roughly every 6 months.
As a solution, in February 2010 we developed the concept of Study Areas which we define as a collection of deployment sites so users can study changes in a certain water property from an area over long time periods (Figure 2). We then introduced the concept of viewing data ‘by water property’ where we piece data from a given study area (collection of deployment sites) and a sensor from one or more instruments together and display it on one plot so users can observe changes in a particular water property (Temperature, Salinity, etc.) over a long period of time even if the instrument recording the water property has changed (Figure 3). We also move instruments between platforms, for example: Say we moved a CTD (conductivity, temperature and depth) from a platform in Saanich Inlet to Strait of Georgia. If we only reported data by instrument, the longer time series plots would display data from 2 completely different regions.
In summary:
- By instrument plots – time series plots for an instrument sensor at a site (lat, long, depth). These plots change after each maintenance cruise. Figure 1.
- By water property plots – long time series plots for a water property from a study area (collection of sites). These plots remain the same after each maintenance cruise so users can observe changes over long time periods (unless we have removed an instrument). Figure 3.
