Ferry Routes Monitoring System (Historical)

This dataset has been extracted as part of an exercise to assemble "all" Cefas Temperature Data and publish it in a Data paper. It is one of 17 Cefas data sources assembled.

Near surface temperature and salinity samples have been collected by ferries, the most recent, the Stena Partner, along 52°N between Harwich (formerly Felixstowe) and Rotterdam, from August 1970 onwards. Throughout the year, at weekly intervals, temperature data were recorded and water samples taken at 9 standard station positions across the Southern Bight of the North Sea. These were sent back to Cefas to be analysed for salinity and nutrients.

This is fully described in https://www.cefas.co.uk/publications/files/datarep43.pdf. The multiple sources are described in 17 separate metadata entries under the same Title, e.g. Seawater temperature records for the UK Shelf - 15 - RV Cefas Endeavour FerryBox Monitoring System. These data have been described in detail via the following publication. Morris, D. J., Pinnegar, J. K., Maxwell, D. L., Dye, S. R., Fernand, L. J., Flatman, S., Williams, O. J., and Rogers, S. I.: Over 10 million seawater temperature records for the United Kingdom Continental Shelf between 1880 and 2014 from 17 Cefas (United Kingdom government) marine data systems, Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 10, 27–51, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-10-27-2018, 2018.