Adaptive Sampling of Rain and Ocean Salinity from Autonomous Seagliders (Guam 2019-2020)

This dataset was produced by the Adaptive Sampling of Rain and Ocean Salinity from Autonomous Seagliders (NASA grant NNX17AK07G) project, an investigation to develop tools and strategies to better measure the structure and variability of upper-ocean salinity in rain-dominated environments. From October 2019 to January 2020, three Seagliders were deployed near Guam (14°N 144°E). The Seaglider is an autonomous profiler measuring salinity and temperature in the upper ocean. The three gliders sampled in an adaptive formation to capture the patchiness of the rain and the corresponding oceanic response in real time. The location was chosen because of the likelihood of intense tropical rain events and the availability of a NEXRAD (S-band) rain radar at the Guam Airport. Spacing between gliders varies from 1 to 60 km. Data samples are gridded by profile and on regular depth bins from 0 to 1000 m. The time interval between profiles was about 3 hours, and they are typically about 1.5 km apart. These profiles are available at Level 2 (basic gridding) and Level 3 (despiked and interpolated). All Seaglider data files are in netCDF format with standards compliant metadata. The project was led by a team from the Applied Physics Laboratory at the University of Washington.