(Yicai Global) Feb. 13 -- A team of researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences recently presented China's first deep-sea scientific observation website that monitors real-time temperature, salinity and ocean currents from a site some 3,000 meters underwater in the Western Pacific, with data updated every hour.

The project was completed on the country's new-generation marine research ship Science during an expedition last year, and the ship has recently returned to its home port of Qingdao in East-Central Shandong province, People's Daily reported today. The team spent four years building the website, project manager Wang Fan said.

The data are captured by more than 800 observation devices in 20 modules, most of which have operated reliably for three or four years. They encompass the ocean's upper, middle and lower layers, and the team managed to significantly improve the system's real-time data transmission capacity last year, Wang noted.

The team has developed a mobile app, Western Pacific Observation Network, and users can access the observation data on a real time basis. The system will serve as a valuable resource for Chinese scientists investigating the impact of Western Pacific currents on climate change in China, and it also holds key implications for weather forecasting and environmental protection operations, he added.