Equatorial Pacific Water Temperature and Turbulence Measurements from TAO Array Mooring

Water temperature and derived turbulence quantities measured by chipod thermistor chain instruments on a Tropical Atmosphere Ocean (TAO) Array mooring at 0N, 110W in the equatorial Pacific Ocean. The dataset spans from September 23, 2005, to December 31, 2017, with gaps, and includes measurements at depths of 9, 19, 29, 40, and 49 meters. Data were collected in situ by NOAA NCEI and are provided in NetCDF format.

Use Cases

• Analyzing temporal trends in water temperature at specific depths (9m, 19m, 29m, 40m, 49m) over a 12-year period.
• Studying turbulence quantities derived from spectral scaling of fast thermistor data to understand ocean mixing.
• Investigating the relationship between temperature and turbulence at a fixed equatorial Pacific location (0N, 110W).
• Validating or calibrating oceanographic and climate models with in-situ mooring data from the TAO array.

Strengths

• Provides a long-term, 12-year time series (2005-2017) of in-situ ocean measurements.
• Contains data from five distinct depth levels (9, 19, 29, 40, 49 m), offering a vertical profile.
• Data originates from the established Tropical Atmosphere Ocean (TAO) Array, a key observational network.

Limitations

• The dataset contains gaps in its temporal coverage, as noted in the descriptions.
• Key metadata such as row count, file size, specific license, and column names are unavailable across all sources.
• There is a conflict in the 'last updated' field: one source lists 2026-03-05, while another lists 2017-12-31.

Provenance

Source

NOAA_NCEI

Collection Method

Measured in situ with chipod instruments mounted on a TAO Array mooring line.

Time Range

2005-09-23 to 2017-12-31

Freshness

2026-03-05 23:39:55.279928

Geography

Equatorial Pacific Ocean at 0N, 110W (TAO Array mooring location).