NASA SPURS Project

Description

An inventory of NASA's airborne and field campaigns for Earth Science

SPURS1_ARGO

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. Part of the Argo global network of autonomous, self-reporting samplers, Argo floats drift horizontally and move vertically through the water column generally on 10 day cycles, collecting high-quality temperature, conductivity and salinity depth profiles from the upper 2000m. Approximately 24 floats were deployed during SPURS-1 within the campaign domain, mainly during the Knorr cruise (6 Sept-9 Oct,2012). These were standard Argo floats with the addition of surface temperature and salinity (STS) sensors and acoustic rain gauges (PAL). Data accessible here only include the standard ARGO profiles, not the STS or PAL data. SPURS-1 ARGO data files are oganized per float and each contain profile trajectory series of conductivity, salinity, temperature, pressure, depth observations.

SPURS2_ARGO

The SPURS (Salinity Processes in the Upper Ocean Regional Study) project is a NASA-funded oceanographic process study and associated field program that aim to elucidate key mechanisms responsible for near-surface salinity variations in the oceans. The project is comprised of 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, SMAP and SMOS satellites, provide a detailed characterization of salinity structure over a continuum of spatio-temporal scales. The SPURS-2 campaign involved two month-long cruises by the R/V Revelle in August 2016 and October 2017 combined with complementary sampling on a more continuous basis over this period by the schooner Lady Amber. Focused around a central mooring located near 10N,125W, the objective of SPURS-2 was to study the dynamics of the rainfall-dominated surface ocean at the western edge of the eastern Pacific fresh pool subject to high seasonal variability and strong zonal flows associated with the North Equatorial Current and Countercurrent. Part of the Argo global network of autonomous, self-reporting samplers, Argo floats drift horizontally and move vertically through the water column generally on 10 day cycles, collecting high-quality temperature, conductivity and salinity depth (CTD) profiles from the upper 2000m. Twenty five floats were deployed during SPURS-2 within the campaign spatial domain and time period, yielding approximately 1,893 profiles. These were standard Argo floats with the addition of acoustic rain gauges (PAL) in some cases. SPURS-2 ARGO data files are organized per float and profile with the vertical conductivity, salinity, temperature, pressure, depth observations per the netCDF ARGO file specification with some augmented global metadata attributes.

SPURS2_MOORING_CENTRAL

The SPURS (Salinity Processes in the Upper Ocean Regional Study) project is NASA-funded 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, SMAP and SMOS satellites, provide a detailed characterization of salinity structure over a continuum of spatio-temporal scales. The SPURS-2 campaign involved two month-long cruises by the R/V Revelle in August 2016 and October 2017 combined with complementary sampling on a more continuous basis over this period by the schooner Lady Amber. Focused around a central mooring located near 10N,125W, the objective of SPURS-2 was to study the dynamics of the rainfall-dominated surface ocean at the western edge of the eastern Pacific fresh pool subject to high seasonal variability and strong zonal flows associated with the North Equatorial Current and countercurrent. The SPURS central mooring consisted of a surface meteorological package, surface oceanographic instruments, and subsurface, non-real time oceanographic instruments including CTD, ADCP sensors and point current meters providing continuous series of temperature, salinity and current profile data. Meteorological observations included wind speed, air temperature, precipitation, and radiative flux. The mooring was deployed in 4769 m depth of water on 24 August 2016, at N10:03.0481, W125:01.939, and was recovered on November 11, 2017. WHOI mooring netCDF data files include surface and subsurface time series of sea temperature, skin temperature, salinity, conductivity, wind velocity, air temperature, relative humidity, precipitation rate, barometric pressure, shortwave and longwave radiation, short/longwave flux, heat Flux, wind Speed and direction.

SPURS2_DISDR

The SPURS-2 raindrop ODM-470 disdrometer dataset was collected from the ship during both the 2016 and 2017 cruises. Please see file global attributes and Klepp et al. (2015, 2018) for information on the disdrometer: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosres.2014.12.014, https://doi.org/10.1038/sdata.2018.122 . As explained in the references and global attributes, small drops that cause voltage drops < 0.12 V (i.e. drops with diameters < 0.44 mm) cannot be distinguished from noise by this instrument, and are thus missed. This undercounting of small drops cannot be corrected, and prevents accurate estimation of DSD parameters such as Nw, D0, Dm with any confidence or precision since the minimum detectable drop size is close to the median drop size of tropical oceanic rain (Thompson et al. 2015, https://doi.org/10.1175/JAS-D-14-0206.1). Nonetheless, this dataset provides estimates of drop counts as a function of drop size for the remaining rain drops > 0.44 mm in diameter, and their associated rain rates and liquid water contents. The SPURS (Salinity Processes in the Upper Ocean Regional Study) project is a NASA-funded oceanographic process study and associated field program that aims to elucidate key mechanisms responsible for near-surface salinity variations in the oceans.

SPURS2_XBAND

The SPURS-2 X-band marine navigation radar image dataset was collected from the ship during both the 2016 and 2017 cruises. The dataset consists of screenshots of rain echoes captured directly from the science-use X-band marine navigation radar. Raw data could not be saved. The screenshots show qualitative (uncalibrated) echoes of backscatter from rain. For full details on the screenshots, how they should be used, and what they show about rainfall, please refer to our publication: Thompson, E.J., W.E. Asher, A.T. Jessup, and K. Drushka. 2019. High-Resolution Rain Maps from an X-band Marine Radar and Their Use in Understanding Ocean Freshening. Oceanography 32(2):58–65, https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2019.213 . The SPURS (Salinity Processes in the Upper Ocean Regional Study) project is a NASA-funded oceanographic process study and associated field program that aims to elucidate key mechanisms responsible for near-surface salinity variations in the oceans.

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Update Frequency

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License

Creative Commons BY 4.0

Documentation

https://impact.earthdata.nasa.gov/casei/campaign/SPURS/

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Contact

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How to Cite

NASA SPURS Project was accessed on DATE from https://registry.opendata.aws/nasa-spurs.