SPURS-2 PICO mooring data for the E. Tropical Pacific field campaign

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. Two PICO moorings (PMEL 9N and 11N) were deployed on the Revelle cruise in September 2016 in northern and southern domain quadrants at 9deg2.830N, 124deg59.833W and N10:59.0498, W124:57.531 respectively. These moorings contained a surface meteorological package and a "prawler", a CTD that crawls up and down the mooring line from 4-450m, yielding time series of salinity and temperature profile data at fixed locations (nominally 8 profiles per day). The moorings were recovered on the second Revelle cruise (Oct. 22 & Nov. 2, 2017). PICO mooring netCDF files contain georeferenced CTD profile data including salinity, temperature, potential temperature, pressure, depth, surface meteorological package data, GPS-Lat/Lon, and profile ID.