Aurora Australis collected 1993 temperature measurements in the Tasman Sea using expendable bathythermographs (XBTs). Data was submitted to the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information by CSIRO for XBT/CTD instrument comparisons. The dataset contains vertical temperature profiles from a single austral research voyage.
Use Cases
- Analyze vertical temperature profiles to study water column stratification in the Tasman Sea.
- Compare XBT-derived temperature measurements against CTD data for instrument validation studies.
- Use geospatial location and timestamp data to map ocean thermal conditions during the 1993 austral season.
- Incorporate historical temperature profiles into climate models assessing Southern Ocean heat content changes.
Strengths
- Single-year data collection focused on a specific 1993 research voyage.
- Data intended for direct instrument comparison (XBT vs. CTD), providing a validation context.
Limitations
- Dataset is from a single year (1993), limiting temporal analysis of trends.
- Specific sample size (row count), geographic extent, and data resolution are unknown.
- Data is over 30 years old, which may limit relevance for contemporary ocean state analysis.
Provenance
- Source
- NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI Accession 0043167).
- Collection Method
- Temperature measurements collected via expendable bathythermographs (XBTs) deployed from the RV Aurora Australis.
- Time Range
- 1993
- Freshness
- null
- Geography
- Tasman Sea, Southern Ocean.