XBT data assembled by US NOAA Atlantic Oceanographic Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) XBT Network since 1969

The NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) has been collecting temperature profiles from expendable Bathythermograph (XBT) along 12 pre-determined transects spanning the entire Atlantic Ocean. Each of the transects are generally surveyed four times per year with "Deep Blue" XBT probes from Sippican, which return temperature from the sea surface to a depth of ~900 m. XBTs are generally deployed with a spacing of 10 km near boundaries/regions with strong currents and 30 km in the ocean interior. Most of the XBT data obtained by NOAA/AOML are distributed into the GTS within 24 hours of its acquisition, providing critical data for weather forecasting models. Scientific quality control is performed within a month after data collection and distributed and archived to NOAA/NCEI and through AOML webpages. All NOAA/AOML XBT transects currently in place have been recommended by the international scientific community. These XBT temperature measurements are used to monitor changes of key surface and subsurface currents, to study meridional heat transport in all ocean basins, and to supplement other observational platforms to assess the variability of the upper ocean heat content.