Oceanographic Glider Profile Data from Monterey Bay Coastal Deployment

Spray glider sp034 collected physical oceanographic profile data in the coastal waters of California. The Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) and the US Navy Naval Postgraduate School deployed the glider from July 7 to August 21, 2020. Data was archived by the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) after processing by the IOOS National Glider Data Assembly Center.

Use Cases

• Analyze vertical profiles of temperature and salinity to study water mass stratification in coastal California.
• Model density variations derived from conductivity, temperature, and depth (CTD) measurements for physical oceanography studies.
• Track the glider's spatiotemporal trajectory to correlate physical properties with specific locations and depths.
• Validate regional oceanographic models using in-situ measurements of conductivity and temperature from the deployment period.

Strengths

• Data covers a specific 45-day continuous deployment from July to August 2020.
• Includes core physical oceanographic properties: temperature, salinity, conductivity, and density.
• Processed and quality-checked for format compliance by the IOOS National Glider Data Assembly Center (NGDAC).

Limitations

• Exact row count, sample size, and data resolution per profile are unknown.
• Limited temporal coverage to a single summer season, restricting analysis of seasonal or annual cycles.
• Geographic scope is confined to the coastal waters of California during one deployment.

Provenance

Source

Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) and US Navy Naval Postgraduate School, archived by NOAA NCEI.

Collection Method

In-situ measurements collected by a Spray underwater glider (sp034) during a profiling mission.

Time Range

2020-07-07 to 2020-08-21

Freshness

Data is from 2020; no update frequency specified for this specific deployment.

Geography

Coastal waters of California, Monterey Bay region.