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SPURS-2 Towed surface salinity profile (SSP) data for the E. Tropical Pacific R/V Revelle cruises

Metadata Updated: September 18, 2025

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. The towed Surface Salinity Profiler (SSP) platform is a converted paddleboard with a keel and surfboard outrigger that is tethered to the ship and skims the sea surface beyond the ships wake. Below the paddleboard are salinity and temperature sensors at depths of 10, 30, 50 and 100cm, and microstructure sensors that measure turbulence. The SSP was deployed 19 times throughout the first SPURS-2 cruise, totaling over 200 hours of measurements, and a further 15 times during the 2017 cruise. SSP deployment is most informative when there is a rain event leading to near-surface ocean stratification. The SSP then measures how the ocean changes over the periods before, during, and after rain, and how rainwater mixes into the ocean during recovery. All SSP data files are in netCDF format with standards compliant metadata.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

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Dates

Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date September 18, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from NASA Data.json

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date September 18, 2025
Publisher SPURS Project;NASA/JPL/PODAAC
Maintainer
Identifier 10.5067/SPUR2-SSP00
Data Last Modified 2025-09-11
Category Earth Science
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 026:00
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id 52c1daf0-3598-4825-bc33-8fba5ab654b8
Harvest Source Id 58f92550-7a01-4f00-b1b2-8dc953bd598f
Harvest Source Title NASA Data.json
Homepage URL https://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov/CitingPODAAC
Old Spatial "CARTESIAN",{"WestBoundingCoordinate":-140.969,"SouthBoundingCoordinate":6.546,"EastBoundingCoordinate":-123.203,"NorthBoundingCoordinate":16.502}
Program Code 026:000
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 0a8daabb490cafef9637bfb2463a2869b113246cd06e686270f4eed7a2ec04f6
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial
Temporal 2016-08-27/2016-08-27

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