Related Experiment Video
Updated: Oct 2, 2026

Early Detection of Cyanobacterial Blooms and Associated Cyanotoxins using Fast Detection Strategy
Published on: February 25, 2021
Data Quality Assessment, Representativeness, and External Consistency of a Coastal Oceanographic Buoy Using
Francisco Portillo1, Nadia Rotbi1, Nicolas Padilla2
1Department of Engineering, University of Almeria, CIAIMBITAL, 04120 Almeria, Spain.
Abstract:
Coastal oceanographic buoys provide high-frequency observations, but their scientific use requires channel-specific quality assessment and explicit treatment of representativeness. This study evaluates a coastal buoy deployed off Cabo de Gata, southeastern Spain, during two non-contiguous observation windows in 2025 and 2026. Buoy records were standardized, screened with quality-control tests, aggregated daily without gap filling, and compared with Copernicus Marine and ERA5 products as an external-consistency assessment. Gridded products were interpolated to the mean buoy position using inverse-distance weighting, and Copernicus Marine temperature was vertically interpolated to the 5 m and 10 m buoy-sensor depths. Completeness was 88.1-88.3% in 2025 and 99.9-100.0% in 2026, with no gross-range failures. Significant wave height and atmospheric pressure showed strong external consistency, with root mean square errors of 0.15/0.14 m and 0.63/0.59 hPa, respectively. Temperature at 5 m showed moderate-to-strong agreement, with errors of 0.98/0.64 °C. Wave-spectrum-derived wind speed showed larger, sea-state-dependent differences, although disagreement decreased under higher wave steepness. The workflow distinguishes channels suitable for daily environmental interpretation from those requiring additional metadata or independent field verification.
Related Concept Videos
Buoyancy and Stability for Submerged and Floating Bodies
Testing Water Quality
Precipitation Gravimetry
In determining nickel by gravimetric analysis, a precipitant of ethanolic dimethylglyoxime is added to a hot nickel salt solution. This is quickly followed by the dropwise addition of dilute ammonia solution until precipitation occurs. A...
Quality of Water
Buoyancy
To get...
Types of Global Positioning System Surveys
