Blue-Cloud 2026 has released nine new open-access training materials, now available through the Blue-Cloud 2026 Training Academy and archived on Zenodo. The materials cover a broad range of thematic services offered by the project's Virtual Laboratories (VLabs), offering step-by-step guidance for researchers, data scientists, and ocean practitioners who wish to make use of the Blue-Cloud 2026 open science platform.
The new training materials, published in April 2026, are designed to reduce the barrier to entry across all expertise levels. Each document walks users through the registration process on the Blue-Cloud 2026 Gateway, explains how to navigate to the relevant VLab and thematic service, and provides clear instructions on how to configure inputs, run analyses, and interpret outputs. All materials are published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence, making them freely reusable by the wider community.
The nine new training materials
The release spans four of our Virtual Labs, covering topics from coastal ocean observations and marine environmental monitoring to global fisheries and carbon-plankton modelling.
VLab 1 – Integration of Coastal Ocean Observations along Europe (ICOOE)
This VLab brings together coastal ocean observations collected by partners of the Joint European Research Infrastructure for Coastal Observatories (JERICO-RI) alongside data from international repositories. It offers data processing, quality control, and integrated analysis tools across three thematic services.
Service 1 – Transboundary Processes and Connectivity Along the European Margins
This training material guides users through the first thematic service of VLab 1, which focuses on transboundary oceanographic processes and connectivity along Europe's coastal margins. The document explains how to access the service, navigate the JupyterHub environment, and use the available analytical tools to explore how water masses, pollutants, and biological matter move across national maritime boundaries. It is relevant for researchers studying large-scale coastal circulation, cross-border environmental impacts, and the exchange of properties between adjacent sea regions.
This training material introduces the second thematic service of VLab 1, dedicated to the detection and analysis of extreme oceanographic events along European coastal areas — such as storm surges, marine heatwaves, and anomalous current patterns. Users are guided through accessing the service, configuring the spatial and temporal parameters of interest, and working with the toolbox to identify, characterise, and contextualise such events against historical baselines. The material is relevant for coastal risk researchers, environmental agencies, and scientists studying the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme ocean phenomena in the context of climate change.
This training material covers the Ocean Glider thematic service, which demonstrates the scientific value of repeated glider transects along so-called 'endurance lines'. The service is built around a Python-based toolbox derived from the original Matlab Glider Transport Toolbox, and consists of three components: the Glider Converter, which processes raw Slocum glider binary data into OG1.0 netCDF standard format; the Glider Postproc toolbox, which produces interpolated gridded data products — including potential temperature, practical salinity, potential density, and geostrophic velocity — across user-defined transect lines; and the TS#3 Data Viewer, a web-based interface for interactively exploring the processed outputs on an interactive map. The document also covers the scientific applications of the service, including water mass analysis using T-S diagrams, current estimation, anomaly detection, and model validation.
VLab 4 – Marine Environmental Indicators (MEI)
The Marine Environmental Indicators VLab enables users to monitor and assess the environmental status of marine areas in support of ocean management and policy decisions. It offers multiple thematic services, each focused on a specific category of marine environmental indicator.
Service 1 – Marine Heatwaves (MHWs)
This training material guides users through the Marine Heatwaves service, which allows researchers to detect, characterise, and monitor anomalous sea surface and subsurface temperature events that exceed climatological thresholds for extended periods. The document explains how to configure the service's parameters — including the spatial domain, time period, and baseline climatology — and how to interpret the resulting outputs, which include heatwave metrics such as intensity, duration, and cumulative intensity. The service draws on satellite and model-derived sea surface temperature data and is relevant for climate scientists, marine ecologists, and policy-makers tracking the ecological and economic impacts of marine heatwaves on fisheries, coral systems, and coastal communities.
Service 2 – Ocean Heat Content
This training material introduces the Ocean Heat Content (OHC) service, which quantifies the amount of heat stored in the ocean water column over user-defined spatial domains and depth ranges. OHC is a critical indicator of long-term climate change, as the ocean absorbs the vast majority of excess heat trapped by greenhouse gases. The document explains how to access the service, set the relevant parameters, and generate and interpret OHC time series and spatial maps. Outputs can be used to track warming trends, assess interannual variability, and support climate model validation. The material is relevant for physical oceanographers, climate researchers, and marine environmental monitoring practitioners.
Service 3 – Eutrophication Indicator: Trophic State Index (TRIX)
This training material covers the Eutrophication Indicator service, which uses the Trophic State Index (TRIX) to assess the trophic status of coastal and marine waters — that is, the level of nutrient enrichment and the resulting effects on primary productivity and oxygen levels. Eutrophication is one of the key pressures on European coastal seas, leading to harmful algal blooms, oxygen depletion, and biodiversity loss. The document guides users through accessing the service, uploading or selecting relevant water quality data, and generating TRIX scores and spatial maps that can inform environmental status assessments in line with frameworks such as the EU Water Framework Directive. It is relevant for environmental monitoring agencies, marine ecologists, and coastal zone managers.
VLab – Carbon Plankton Dynamics
The Carbon Plankton Dynamics VLab provides services to model and analyse the contribution of environmental drivers — including nutrients and sea surface temperature — to phytoplankton dynamics in European seas.
This training material introduces the Nutrient-Phytoplankton-Zooplankton-Detritus (NPZD) modelling service, which analyses the relative influence of key environmental drivers — such as dissolved inorganic nutrients and sea surface temperature — on phytoplankton dynamics in the Belgian part of the North Sea and the northern Adriatic Sea. NPZD models simulate the cycling of carbon and nutrients through the marine food web, linking primary production to broader biogeochemical processes. The document explains how to set up and run the model within the JupyterHub environment, configure input parameters, and interpret the resulting time series and sensitivity analyses. It is relevant for marine biogeochemists, ecosystem modellers, and researchers studying carbon cycling and the biological carbon pump.
VLab – Global Fisheries Atlas
The Global Fisheries Atlas VLab aims to improve the description and understanding of fisheries activities at a global scale, both by disseminating knowledge and by providing access to curated fisheries data resources.
Service 1 – GRSF and Global Tuna Atlas
This training material guides users through the first service of the Global Fisheries Atlas VLab, which provides access to two major global fisheries data resources: the Global Record of Stocks and Fisheries (GRSF) and the Global Tuna Atlas. The GRSF is an authoritative catalogue of fish stocks and fisheries worldwide, integrating data from multiple regional fisheries management organisations (RFMOs) and national bodies. The Global Tuna Atlas compiles catch and effort data for tuna and tuna-like species across all ocean basins. The document explains how to discover, access, query, and visualise these datasets within the VLab environment, and discusses how they can be used to support fisheries stock assessment, sustainability analysis, and policy development. It is relevant for fisheries scientists, marine resource managers, and researchers working on global food security and ocean governance.
VLab – Coastal Currents from Observations
The Coastal Currents from Observations VLab enables users to generate integrated ocean surface current maps by combining data from multiple observational platforms.
Service 1 – Integrated Ocean Surface Current Maps
This training material introduces the Integrated Ocean Surface Current Maps service, which merges surface current observations from multiple complementary sources — including High-Frequency (HF) radar, drifters, and satellite altimetry — to produce coherent, spatially complete maps of coastal surface currents. Such integrated products are critical for applications including search and rescue operations, marine pollution tracking (such as oil spill drift modelling using the MEDSLIK-II model), and understanding coastal circulation dynamics. The document walks users through accessing the service, selecting data sources and spatial domains, and generating and interpreting the resulting current maps. It is relevant for physical oceanographers, operational oceanography practitioners, coastal engineers, and marine safety authorities.
Accessible to all levels, ready to use immediately
All nine training materials are entry-level resources, designed to be accessible even to users with no prior background in oceanography or data science. No software installation is required: all services run directly within the Blue-Cloud Virtual Research Environment, accessible via the Blue-Cloud 2026 Gateway. All nine training materials are openly available and freely reusable under CC BY 4.0. Browse the full catalogue on the Blue-Cloud 2026 Training Academy, or explore the complete collection directly on Zenodo.
