Delayed Mode Expendable Bathythermograph Profiles from Ships of Opportunity

Delayed mode ocean temperature profiles collected via expendable bathythermographs (XBTs) deployed from commercial vessels. The IMOS Ship of Opportunity Underway XBT group operates five high-resolution lines repeated four times per year. This dataset covers the Indian Ocean, Southern Ocean, and Pacific Oceans.

Use Cases

• Modeling mesoscale ocean dynamics based on high-resolution boundary-to-boundary profiling.
• Analyzing seasonal variability in boundary currents based on quarterly repeated transects.
• Studying ocean temperature structure across major basins based on Indian, Southern, and Pacific Ocean coverage.
• Calibrating real-time oceanographic models based on delayed mode data quality.

Strengths

• Data is collected on five specific high-resolution (HRX) XBT lines.
• Transects are repeated four times per year, providing seasonal coverage.
• Profiles cover boundary-to-boundary sampling across three major oceans.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data may reflect geographic bias inherent to specific commercial vessel routes.

Provenance

Source

AODN

Collection Method

Profiles deployed from commercial vessels (Ships of Opportunity) by onboard technicians.

Geography

Indian Ocean, Southern Ocean, Pacific Oceans