Study Shows Subsea Cables Can Generate 86 Terabytes of Ocean Data Per Day
A team led by Professor Mohammad Belal at the National Oceanography Centre (NOC) has demonstrated how existing subsea fibre optic cables can be transformed into high-resolution sensors capable of monitoring the ocean in real time, generating up to 86 terabytes of data per day from a single cable .
Published in Scientific Reports, the research forms part of the SEALS (Submarine noise Evaluation & Analytics using Low-cost Sustainable-sensing) project, delivered through the EMSO Physical Access Programme .
Using a 28-kilometre subsea cable in the Western Ionian Sea, the team effectively turned the entire cable into a continuous array of thousands of virtual sensors, capturing detailed acoustic and physical signals across the seafloor . The researchers were able to capture signals from seismic activity, underwater landslides, ocean turbulence, and marine life movements .
"This work shows how we can transform existing subsea infrastructure into powerful, continuous ocean observatories," said Professor Belal. "By combining advanced optical sensing with bespoke data analytics, we are able to distinguish a wide range of underwater processes in real time"
