ALAMO Profiling Float Ocean Data for Cyclone and Sea Ice Research

World Ocean data from Air-Launched Autonomous Micro Observer (ALAMO) profiling floats, which measure temperature, salinity, and pressure. The dataset was developed by NOAA NCEI for deployment in challenging environments like tropical cyclones and around sea ice. It contains measurements from July 15, 2014, to November 11, 2018.

Use Cases

• Analyzing temperature and salinity profiles in regions impacted by tropical cyclones.
• Studying ocean conditions and water column structure in sea ice zones.
• Validating and improving oceanographic and weather forecast models with in-situ pressure data.
• Researching air-deployment techniques for autonomous ocean observation systems.

Strengths

• Data is specifically designed for collection in extreme, hard-to-access locations like cyclones and ice zones.
• Provides direct in-situ measurements of fundamental ocean variables (temperature, salinity, pressure).
• Cross-platform presence on NASA Earthdata and Data.gov indicates recognized importance and curation.

Limitations

• Specific column names, row counts, and file sizes are not provided by any source.
• Sources conflict on the last updated date: one states 2018-11-11, another states 2026-03-05, suggesting potential metadata inconsistency.
• License information is not specified.

Provenance

Source

NOAA NCEI

Collection Method

Measurements collected by air-deployed ALAMO autonomous profiling floats.

Time Range

2014-07 15 to 2018-11-11

Freshness

2026-03-05 23:59:03.912745

Geography

World Ocean