Beaufort Gyre Exploration Project Mooring A collected oceanographic and sea ice data over a 353-day deployment from 2007 to 2008. The mooring was equipped with a bottom pressure recorder, two moored profilers, and an upward-looking sonar. The project was conducted by the SCIOPS organization, with data last updated in January 2009.
Use Cases
- Analyze temporal trends in ice draft from 15,321,140 upward-looking sonar samples to study sea ice variability.
- Correlate bottom pressure, temperature, and salinity from 16,967 BPR samples with deep ocean profiler data (893 profiles).
- Model water column structure using 315 shallow and 893 deep moored profiler casts to understand stratification.
- Validate satellite-derived sea ice thickness by comparing with in-situ ice draft measurements from the sonar.
- Investigate seasonal cycles in ocean temperature and salinity across the 353-day record for climate studies.
Strengths
- High-resolution time-series with over 15 million ice draft samples from the upward-looking sonar.
- 353-day continuous deployment provides a full annual cycle of observations.
- Multi-instrument suite captures complementary data: pressure, temperature, salinity, ice draft, and water column profiles.
Limitations
- Data is from a single mooring location, limiting spatial representativeness.
- Temporal coverage is limited to one year (2007-2008), preventing long-term trend analysis.
- Sample data and specific column definitions are unavailable, complicating initial analysis.
Provenance
- Source
- Beaufort Gyre Exploration Project, SCIOPS organization, accessed via NASA Earthdata.
- Collection Method
- Data collected by an instrumented oceanographic mooring deployed in the Beaufort Gyre.
- Time Range
- 2007 to 2008 (353-day deployment).
- Freshness
- Data is from 2007-2008, last updated in 2009; it is a static historical snapshot.
- Geography
- Arctic Ocean, Beaufort Gyre region (specific mooring location A).