Ships of Opportunity Expendable Bathythermograph Real-Time Data for Australian Waters

XBT real-time data is available through the IMOS portal and collected by technicians on ships of opportunity along established transit lines. The data undergoes a full scientific QC process identifying bad data and oceanic features like eddies, fronts, and temperature inversions. Finally, the data is distributed to the GTSPP global data acquisition centre in Washington DC and covers waters around Australia and across to New Zealand.

Use Cases

• Modeling ocean temperature profiles based on high-density sampling along transit lines.
• Detecting oceanic features like eddies and fronts based on the scientific QC process.
• Monitoring real-time ocean conditions for operational forecasting based on data inserted onto the GTS.
• Studying water column structure and temperature inversions based on the QC process.

Strengths

• Data undergoes a full scientific QC process identifying bad data and oceanic features.
• Real-time data messages are sent to shore and inserted onto the Global Telecommunication System (GTS).
• Data is made freely available to all through the GTSPP global data acquisition centre.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network (AODN)

Collection Method

Acquired by technicians on ships of opportunity using the Quoll system developed by Turo Technology, with data stored in netcdf files.

Geography

Waters around Australia and across to New Zealand.