IN2023_V07: Triaxus Oceanographic Data for Antarctic Circumpolar Current SWOT Validation

Five Triaxus tows collected 121.75 hours of multidisciplinary ocean data south of Tasmania between November 15 and December 20, 2023. The Australian Ocean Data Network provides this in situ dataset to validate the groundbreaking SWOT satellite mission's sea surface height measurements. Measurements include CTD, dissolved oxygen, nitrate, optical backscatter, and plankton counts from a region of intense eddy activity.

Use Cases

• Validate Surface Water Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite sea surface height measurements based on in situ subsurface CTD and dissolved oxygen data.
• Characterize small-scale (10-100 km) variability in ocean circulation based on high-resolution towed sensor profiles across an Antarctic Circumpolar Current meander.
• Quantify cross-frontal transport of heat and carbon based on multidisciplinary measurements of physical, biogeochemical, and biological parameters.
• Investigate correlations between sea surface height anomalies and subsurface ocean structure based on simultaneous physical and biogeochemical sensor data.

Strengths

• Multidisciplinary measurements from 9 distinct sensor types including CTD, nitrate, fluorescence, and a Laser Optical Plankton Counter.
• Data collection spanned 121.75 hours over 5 separate tows, providing repeated spatial sampling.
• Explicit temporal coverage from November 15 to December 20, 2023, and geographic focus on a specific ACC meander south of Tasmania.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• The description notes software crashes and undulation schedule failures during data collection, which may affect data continuity.

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network

Collection Method

Data collected via towed TRIAXUS platform (hull #2) with a suite of oceanographic sensors during RV Investigator voyage IN2023_V07.

Time Range

November 15, 2023 to December 20,我们发现 2023 (AEST)

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-28 13:21:33.740129; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Ocean region south of Tasmania, traversing a standing meander of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current.