Oceanographic instrument simulator

The Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) established the Free Ocean Carbon Enrichment (FOCE) experiment to study the long term effects of decreased ocean pH levels by developing in-situ platforms [1]. Deep FOCE (dpFOCE) was the first platform, which was deployed in 890 meters of water in Monterey Bay. After the conclusion of dpFOCE, MBARI developed an open source shallow water FOCE (swFOCE) platform to facilitate worldwide shallow water experiments on FOCE [1][2]. A shallow water platform can be more ubiquitous than a deep-water platform as shallow water instruments are less expensive (as it does not have to be designed to withstand the pressure at deep ocean depths) and more easily deployed (they can be deployed right along the coast). The swFOCE experiment is an open source platform, and MBARI has made the plans available online to anyone interested in studying shallow water carbon enrichment. The Oceanographic instrument simulator (OIS), described in this paper provides the means for MBARI engineers to test the swFOCE platform without attaching the numerous and expensive oceanographic instruments. The Oceanographic Instrument Simulator simulates the various scientific instruments that could be deployed in an actual experiment.