The San Francisco Bay Environmental Assessment and Monitoring Station (SF-BEAMS) is operated and housed at RTC. The station continuously monitors San Francisco Bay

- water quality
- weather conditions and
- surface currents

in the deep water channel that lies a few hundred meters north of the Tiburon Peninsula. These measurements are available in real-time and archived files on the SF-BEAMS website. SF-BEAMS is part of a larger distributed observatory known as CICORE (Center for Integrative Coastal Observation, Research, and Education) that monitors marine environments along the entire coast of California.

RTC also monitors surface currents in San Francisco Bay and the ocean near the bay using a technology know as High Frequency Radar or High Frequency Radio (HF Radar or HF Radio).  The surface current mapping effort is part of COCMP (Coastal Ocean Currents Monitoring Program), a program funded by the State of California that eventually will monitor ocean surface currents along the entire coast of California. Data for San Francisco Bay can be found at the local COCMP website and at the CeNCOOS (Central and Northern California Ocean Observing System) website.