Bul ARGO is developed as a project supported by Bulgarian National Science Fund, Ministry of education, youth and science. The purpose of the project was to develop a new national marine research infrastructure for in situ observation in Black Sea based on autonomous profiling floats as a Bulgarian component of the Euro Argo network. The main objective of the Bul Argo project was to deploy and make operational an array of 4-5 floats during the 3 years of project execution. In addition, it was necessary to work on several key issues taking into account Black Sea peculiarities: technical (float technology, data management and delivery system) and organizational (logistics for deployment) issues. Significant efforts were dedicated to consolidate and broaden the user community and to demonstrate: via scientific exploitation of data the impact and utility of Argo floats in the Black Sea. The Bulgarian contribution to the establishment of the future Black Sea Argo system consist now of 4 drifting buoys deployed during the project implementation: 3 floats in year 2011 and one float in 2013. It is planned to deploy two ARGO floats during 2019, one of them with Dissolved oxygen sensor.
Activities planned:
In 2018 Bulgaria has become a regular member of Euro-ARGO ERIC and as such has the obligation to ensure deployment of at minimum of 3 ARGO floatrs per year. With regard to the specifics of the Black Sea, the wider use of floats with dissolved oxygen sensors and biogeochemical sensors is planned.