Slocum Glider CTD Profiles in the Caribbean Sea from 2015

July 15 to August 30, 2015, data comprises physical oceanographic profiles collected by the Rutgers University-deployed Slocum thermal glider 'clark' in the Caribbean Sea's Virgin Islands Trough. The dataset contains measurements of temperature, salinity, conductivity, and density. It was assembled by the Integrated Ocean Observing System's National Glider Data Assembly Center and archived by NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information.

Use Cases

• Analyze temperature and salinity profiles to study water mass structure and mixing in the Virgin Islands Trough.
• Model density variations derived from conductivity and temperature data to understand ocean stratification.
• Validate the performance and endurance of the thermal-recharging Slocum glider platform using its collected time-series data.
• Correlate physical property measurements like conductivity with regional oceanographic models for the Caribbean Sea.

Strengths

• Data covers a focused 47-day deployment period from a specific glider mission.
• Includes multiple core physical oceanographic variables: temperature, salinity, conductivity, and density.
• Data was quality-checked for netCDF convention compliance and aggregated by the IOOS National Glider Data Assembly Center.

Limitations

• Dataset is limited to a single glider deployment over less than two months, restricting temporal analysis.
• Geographic scope is confined to the Virgin Islands Trough, limiting broader regional generalizations.
• The specific row count and spatial resolution of the profiles are unknown.

Provenance

Source

NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) via the IOOS National Glider Data Assembly Center.

Collection Method

Deployment of a Slocum thermal glider equipped with CTD sensors.

Time Range

2015-07-15 to 2015-08-30

Freshness

Data collection ended in 2015; the dataset is a historical snapshot.

Geography

Caribbean Sea, Virgin Islands Trough.