Since 2012, the Alfred-Wegener-Institute operates two shallow-water cabled underwater observatories (UWO’s) in the Southern North Sea North off Helgoland (Helgoland-UWO - 59° 11'N / 8° 52,79E – Fig. 1) and in the Arctic Ocean in Spitzbergen (Svalbard-UWO - 78° 55.200 / 11° 54.00 – (WGS84) - Fig. 2). The systems were developed in close cooperation with the Helmholtz Centre Geesthacht (HZG) within the framework of COSYNA.
Since 2014, both observatories are part of the infrastructure project ACROSS. Since 2016, the Helgoland UWO is part of the EU-Project Jericho Next and since 2018 part of the MOSES project.
Both systems are operated year round with the objectives to: