Union Hall Harbour GLOSS:

A tide gauge was installed in Union Hall Harbour that went live in 2020 as part of the Irish National Tide Gauge Network.

This tide gauge is included as a Global Sea Level Observing System (GLOSS) station. The decision to locate at Union Hall followed a study in 2018, commissioned by the Marine Institute, to identify an optimal location for the southwest GLOSS station after it became apparent that the Castletownbere station was not ideal, due to extensive engineering works planned for the harbour. An exhaustive search along the southwest coastline for a site that met the science and operational needs was conducted and drawing on advice from international colleagues, Union Hall Harbor was selected.

For detailed site-specific metadata and broader information about GLOSS and the INTGN, please see below:

Site-specific Metadata: Installation date: 16/11/2020 Latitude: 51.558965 Longitude: -9.133491 Mean Sea Level, MSL (relative to Ordnance Datum Malin Head, ODMH) = -0.162 m Lowest Astronomical Tide, LAT, relative to ODMH = -2.142 m Tide Gauge Benchmark, TGBM, relative to ODMH = 3.069 m Tidal range, between low and high mean spring tides = 3.198 m Output parameters:
– Time, Latitude, Longitude, Station ID, Data source id – Water level relative to ODMH (in metres) – Water level relative to LAT (in metres) – QC flag Quality controlled data from: 20/11/2020 Automated Near-Real-Time Quality control and visual QC from: 01/09/2024

           Global Sea Level Observing System (GLOSS) Stations on the Irish National Tide Gauge Network (INTGN)

The INTGN is a network of permanent, managed tide gauges located around the Irish coast, collecting water level data to constitute the development of the permanent tidal monitoring infrastructure. The Marine Institute owns the network and is responsible for the service, maintenance, and quality control of all the network nodes. The network is funded by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine.

Two of these nodes have been developed to become part of the Global Sea Level Observing System (GLOSS) (https://gloss-sealevel.org/sea-level-applications; https://uhslc.soest.hawaii.edu/gloss/), which provides enhanced quality sea-level monitoring at chosen sites where water level and land level observations are co-located. As a GLOSS requirement, there are three gauges running side by side t each site. Two primary gauges (100% redundancy) and a third ‘B-Gauge’, that for calibration purposes only measures from Mean Sea Level (MSL) and above. The Marine Institute have instigated, designed, implemented and funded these two stations throughout. The GLOSS gauges are maintained, calibrated and characterised on a six-monthly rolling cycle and receive an annual classic land level survey to check wider area substrate stability. GNSS data are collected by the co-located, state of the art CGPS system. The Marine Institute manage the water level and land survey data, where the GNSS data are reported directly to SONEL (https://www.sonel.org/) from each site. The OPW operate the nation’s third GLOSS station at Portmore Pier, Malin Head.

The other Marine Institute hosted GLOSS Station, located at Howth Harbour, came online in November 2018 and its Data Catalogue can be found at: https://data.marine.ie/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/ie.marine.data:dataset.4780.

For further details on the Irish National Tide Gauge Network, such as parameters collected and a quality statement, please go to: https://data.marine.ie/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/ie.marine.data:dataset.2774

Data access: Data is available via the Marine Institute’s ERDDAP download portal: https://erddap.marine.ie/erddap/tabledap/IrishNationalTideGaugeNetwork.html Below are some examples of how a user can customise a download from ERDDAP: – Filter data by quality flag – Select specific gauges – Choose date ranges – Specify file output formats

Real-time data is also accessible from an SFTP site associated with www.irishtides.ie. Please get in touch for information on accessing the SFTP site.