On April 9th, 2021, 1-2 PM UTC, Miguel Bessa Pacheco, Technical Director, and João Vitorino, Oceanographer, will  tell us how the Portuguese Hydrographic Institute (Instituto Hidrográfico) contributes to expand the scientific knowledge of the Atlantic Ocean.

The Portuguese Hydrographic Institute was established in 1960 as a Portuguese Navy unit and is presently a state laboratory, employing about 300 permanent staff, with scientific competences in the areas of hydrographic surveying and nautical cartography, safety of navigation, oceanography, marine geology and chemistry. The main research areas in the last few years covered the dynamics of continental shelf and slope waters and interaction with the deep-sea circulation, physical, geological and sedimentary characterisation and impacts of continental shelf and slope, submarine canyon dynamics, operational oceanography, characterization and quantification of marine pollutants, including microplastics, for an evaluation of the marine environment status.

Speakers

Miguel Bessa Pacheco

Captain Miguel Bessa Pacheco is a Portuguese Navy Officer specialized in hydrographic engineering. He holds a master of engineering degree in surveying engineering and a master degree in geographic information systems. He served most of his career at Instituto Hidrográfico with the oceanography division and the technical-scientific data centre. He participated in several oceanographic cruises, and for two years was the commanding officer of Almirante Gago Coutinho research vessel. Presently he is the technical director of Instituto Hidrográfico.

João Vitorino

João Vitorino is a physical oceanographer at Instituto Hidrografico (the Portuguese Hydrographic Office) with more than 25 years of experience. The activity he develops is centered in the study of the physical oceanography of the Portuguese coastal ocean areas and in the implementation and improvement of monitoring capacities and assimilation modelling capacities for those areas. He was the scientific and technical responsible in 14 multidisciplinary cruises conducted by Instituto Hidrografico, was the coordinator of the national funded projects MOCASSIM (POCTI) and MONICAN (EEA Grants 2004-2009) and was the responsible scientist for Instituto Hidrografico participation in the EU projects EUROSTRATAFORM (FP5), HERMES (FP6), HERMIONE (FP7) and JERICO-NEXT (H2020-INFRAIA). He is presently the responsible scientist for Instituto Hidrografico participation in the H2020 projects JERICO-S3 and JERICO-Design which gather a broad community of European research institutions in the design and implementation of a European research infrastructure for the coastal ocean. João Vitorino is the National Contact Point for the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS) and the National Alternate Contact Point for the Joint Commission for Oceanography and Marine Meteorology (JCOMM).

We will continue with the Networking Fridays during the next months. More information about future sessions as well as presentations and videos from previous sessions can be found here. Twitter Hashtag: #netfridays. Expect some very exciting afternoons, or mornings or evenings, depending on where you are…

If you need any additional information please send an email to Jose Luiz Moutinho.