N: 26 S: 22 E: -36 W: -39
Description
The SPURS (Salinity Processes in the Upper Ocean Regional Study) project is an oceanographic process study and associated field program that aim to elucidate key mechanisms responsible for near-surface salinity variations in the oceans. The project involves two field campaigns and a series of cruises in regions of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans exhibiting salinity extremes. SPURS employs a suite of state-of-the-art in-situ sampling technologies that, combined with remotely sensed salinity fields from the Aquarius/SAC-D and SMOS satellites, provide a detailed characterization of salinity structure over a continuum of spatio-temporal scales. The SPURS-1 campaign involved a series of 5 cruises during 2012 - 2013 seeking to characterize the salinity structure and balance in a high salinity, high evaporation, and low rainfall region of the subtropical North Atlantic. It aims to resolve processes responsible for maintaining the subtropical surface salinity maximum in this region and within a 900 x 800-mile square study area centered at 25N, 38W. The Seasoar is a towed vehicle equipped with impeller-forced wings that can be rotated on command to allow the vehicle to undulate in the upper ocean. Generally, Seasoar operates between the surface and about 400 meters depth while being towed on faired cable at about eight knots. A typical dive cycle takes about 12 minutes to complete, providing an up and down profile every 3 km. For SPURS-1, a Seasoar was deployed exclusively during the Sarmiento cruise over the period 22 Mar-8 Apr, 2013 and to a maximum depth of 312m. The Seasoar towed sensor system was equipped with dual pumped temperature/conductivity sensors. The Seasoar data in netCDF form here contains a highly processed 1-meter gridded version of the original source dataset, which is comprised of temperature, conductivity, salinity, pressure observations from 1144 casts during 2013 Spring SPURS Cruise.
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Variables
Variables are a set of physical properties whose values determine the characteristics or behavior of something. For example, temperature and pressure are variables of the atmosphere. Parameters and variables can be used interchangeably. Variable level attributes provide individual information for each variable.
The Name in this table is the variable name. Fill value indicates missing or undefined data points in a variable. Valid range is the range of values the variable can store. Scale factor is used to increase or decrease the size of an object and can be used to correct for distortion. For questions on a specific variable, please use the Earthdata Forum.
| Name Sort descending | Description | Units | Data Type | Fill Value | Valid Range | Scale Factor |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| latitude | Latitude of CTD measurement | degrees_north | float | N/A | 22 to 26 | 1 |
| longitude | Longitude of CTD measurement | degrees_east | float | N/A | -39 to -36 | 1 |
| pressure | Pressure of CTD measurement | decibars | float | N/A | 1 to 312 | 1 |
| profile | Unique identifier for each feature instance | N/A | float | N/A | N/A | 1 |
| salinity | Salinity of SeaSoar measurement | psu | float | 1.0E+30 | 36 to 38 | 1 |
| temperature | Temperature of SeaSoar measurement | degrees_C | float | 1.0E+30 | 15 to 25 | 1 |
| time | Time of Seasoar measurement | seconds since 1970-01-01 00:00:00 0:00 | double | N/A | N/A | 1 |
| z | Depth of CTD measurement | m | float | N/A | 0 to 310 | 1 |