Ocean Glider Trajectory Profiles of Temperature and Salinity

Spray glider profile data collected by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution off the East Coast of the US and Canada. The dataset contains measurements of physical oceanographic properties including temperature, salinity, conductivity, and density. NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information archived this data from a deployment spanning April to June 2018.

Use Cases

• Analyze vertical profiles of temperature and salinity to study water column stratification.
• Map glider trajectories to track ocean currents and eddies along the US/Canada East Coast.
• Calculate density from conductivity and temperature measurements to identify pycnoclines.
• Correlate physical property measurements with time and location to model seasonal changes.
• Validate satellite-derived sea surface temperature data with in-situ glider measurements.

Strengths

• Data checked for compliance with netCDF conventions by the National Glider Data Assembly Center.
• Contains measurements of multiple core physical oceanographic properties.
• Provides trajectory data from a specific glider deployment over a defined period.

Limitations

• The exact number of profiles and rows is unknown.
• Data is limited to a single glider deployment over a 47-day period.
• Geographic coverage is restricted to a specific region of the North American East Coast.

Provenance

Source

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, via NOAA's Integrated Ocean Observing System.

Collection Method

Data collected by an autonomous Spray glider, aggregated and preserved by NCEI.

Time Range

2018-04-22 to 2018-06-07

Freshness

Data collection ended in June 2018; it is a historical snapshot.

Geography

East Coast - US/Canada