SAHFOS NAWebCPR v1
Try the web based North Atlantic browser - BETA edition (registered users only)
We are currently testing a new web-based resource which provides
similar functionality to the classis WinCPR browsers but covers the
entire North Atlantic in 1° longitude by 1° latitude (~59km x
~112km) pixels (4797 locations) covering 100.5°W to 15.5°E, 30.5°N
to 70.5°N. this product provides a number of
statistical reliability tests and includes modelled climatology
data.
SAHFOS WinCPR v2
Download SAHFOS WinCPR v2
- BETA Edition (registered users only)
We are currently completing the documentation and
finishing the final testing of the latest WinCPR product. Version 2
of the SAHFOS CPR browser for the North Sea will provide a
substantial modification to the existing version (v1.1).
Please note that we will continue to support the 183 pixel version
of the WinCPR software for the forseeable future and are likely to
develop web based versions of both pixel sizes in the future.
Version 2 of the WinCPR North Sea browser uses a
new pixel matrix of 152 pixels around centres of 1° longitude by 1°
latitude (~59km x ~112km). This new versions contains 12
months x 54 years x 112 taxa and includes measures of statistical
reliability. In addition to the biological data, WinCPR v2
also includes modelled climatology data covering key indicators -
e.g. oxygen, temperature, salinity etc.
If you would like to preview the forthcoming release version of this product, please get it from our downloads section. Preview versions are time-limited and should be treated as pre-release, non-supported editions which may contain bugs or errors in calculations.
SAHFOS WinCPR v1.1
Download SAHFOS WinCPR v1.1 (registered users only)
Towed behind merchant ‘ships of opportunity’ the Continuous Plankton Recorder (CPR) has been used in the North Atlantic since 1939 and in the North Sea since 1931, with a break for the Second World War. Plankton are sampled by the CPR machine and filtered from seawater by a moving band of silk. One sample is equivalent to ~3m3 of filtered seawater and represents 10 nautical miles of tow through the sea. Samples are analysed under a microscope and the plankton counted and identified into >400 different organisms, both plant (phytoplankton) and animal (zooplankton), half of them to the level of species. The North Sea is one of the best studied seas in the world, and has been consistently sampled by the CPR survey since 1946, resulting in more than 50,000 analysed samples. Since 1991 the survey has been operated by the Sir Alister Hardy Foundation for Ocean Science (SAHFOS).
All the CPR results are stored in an Access database and are freely available as SAHFOS operates an open data policy. However, the raw data are not available on line and access is limited to researchers; researchers are consequently welcome to visit SAHFOS. To make the data more accessible and to overcome some of the problems of non-standard sampling due to the coverage of the shipping routes a prototype gridded database was produced in Matlab by Vezzulli and Reid (2003). A total of 57 phytoplankton and 54 zooplankton species or other categories as well as an estimate of phytoplankton biomass (Phytoplankton Colour) have been averaged for each month, within the period 1948-2001 for zooplankton and Phytoplankton Colour and 1958- 2001 for phytoplankton, on a grid of 183 pixels covering the whole of the North Sea. Long term monthly averages of photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) are also included. The grid has been constructed around centres of 1° longitude by 0.5° latitude (~59km x ~56km). Geostatistical techniques have been used to interpolate for missing values in individual pixels of the grid.
To facilitate access in a user-friendly way a range of eight plotting options are available for the presentation and visualisation of the included data as well as options to access the gridded data for further analysis. These include facilities to plot maps for selected species by month, year, groups of months or years and long-term means or as time series graphs, seasonal graphs or contour plots. For example a total of 72,576 distribution maps for all species (12 months x 54 years x 112 taxa) are available for the period 1948 to 2001 in the browser (Monthly Plankton Abundance). The aim of the product presented here has been to further increase accessibility to a wide community and reduce costs for access by constructing a Windows compatible front end to the browser. We hope that the browser will have wide application, not just in ocean science, for an audience ranging from researchers to school children. In a research context a cautionary note needs to be made; as the data are interpolated, artefacts may have been introduced. A new version of the browser (version 2) with a 1° grid is currently in preparation. This version of the browser will include a statistical measure of the reliability of the information included for each pixel time event. In developing this version we are working in partnership with CEFAS, JRC and other partners to include additional environmental data.
SAHFOS WinCPR v1
NB WinCPR v1 has now been replaced with the more recent v1.1 (above). Please be advised that v1.1 fixes a number of bugs, is faster and contains more data - both in terms of number of species and years. If you currently have v1 installed, you are strongly advised to uninstall the earlier product and to then use v1.1 - this can be downloaded once you have logged in.
WinCPR is a gridded database of plankton abundance
in the North Sea compiled from monthly sampling by the Continuous
Plankton Recorder (CPR) survey. The available data covers the years
1948 to 2001 (representing 54 years of month-by-month data) and
contains interpolated statistics for 112 planktonic organisms or
indices (both animal, zooplankton and plant, phytoplankton) as well as a new index for
photosynthetically active radiation (PAR). WinCPR
software provides a flexible interface to allow users to access a
subset of this data. The latest version is available here.
The WinCPR software is based on the original MATLAB version developed by Luigi Vezzulli. WinCPR is a collaborative development between Luigi Vezzulli (University of Genoa), SAHFOS and Paul Dowland from the Centre for Security, Communications and Network Research (University of Plymouth). Contributions to the funding of the project were received from WWF UK, UK Defra and UK CEFAS, which is gratefully acknowledged. This product is also a contribution to the EU Northern Ocean Carbon Exchange Study (NOCES) project.
The aim of the product presented here has been
to further increase accessibility to a wide community and reduce
costs for access by constructing a Windows compatible front end
to the browser. We hope that the browser will have wide
application, not just in ocean science, for an audience ranging
from researchers to school children.
The grid has been constructed around centres of 1° longitude by 0.5° latitude (~59km x ~56km). Geostatistical techniques have been used to interpolate for missing values in individual pixels of the grid. To facilitate access in a user-friendly way a range of eight plotting options are available for the presentation and visualisation of the included data as well as options to access the gridded data for further analysis. These include facilities to plot maps for selected species by month, year, groups of months or years and long-term means or as time series graphs, seasonal graphs or contour plots. For example a total of 72,576 distribution maps for all species per month (12 months x 54 years x 112 taxa) is available for the period 1948 to 2001 in the browser (Monthly Plankton Abundance).