OMG APEX Floats: Ocean Temperature and Salinity Profiles Around Greenland

APEX profiling floats deployed for the Oceans Melting Greenland project collected in-situ vertical profiles of ocean temperature and salinity. These Level 1 measurements provide direct physical data on the water characteristics influencing Greenland's glacial melt. The dataset likely contains time-series and geospatial data from autonomous floats using Conductivity, Temperature, and Depth sensors.

Use Cases

• Modeling ocean heat contribution to glacial melt based on in-situ temperature profiles.
• Analyzing changes in ocean density and stratification from concurrent salinity and temperature measurements.
• Validating satellite-derived sea surface data with subsurface in-situ float measurements.
• Studying seasonal or interannual variability in ocean properties around Greenland from time-series float data.

Strengths

• Data originates from the NASA-led Oceans Melting Greenland project, a focused scientific mission.
• Provides direct in-situ measurements from profiling floats, a key source for subsurface ocean validation.
• Dataset is present on multiple authoritative platforms (Data.gov, NASA Earthdata), indicating recognized importance.

Limitations

• Critical metadata is missing: row count, file size, and specific column names are not provided.
• Sources conflict on the last update date (2026 vs. 2021), creating uncertainty about data freshness.
• Documentation gaps exist, with license specified only as 'other-license-specified' without details.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Collection Method

Measurements gathered by autonomous APEX profiling floats using Conductivity, Temperature, and Depth sensors.

Time Range

null

Freshness

Last updated dates conflict: Data.gov lists 2026-03-12 and 2026-04-09, while NASA Earthdata lists 2021-10-31.

Geography

Ocean waters around Greenland.