IMOS - National Mooring Network - National Reference Stations - Combined long-term hydrological data product (1944-2014)

The National Reference Station (NRS) network is designed to provide baseline information, at timescales relevant to human response, that is required to understand how large-scale, long-term change and variability in the global ocean are affecting the ecosystems of Australia's coastal seas. The stations are operated by the National Mooring Network (formerly known as the Australian National Mooring Network (ANMN)), a facility of the Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS). This product includes temperature and salinity measurements from the original water sampling program carried out by CSIRO since the 1940s, and the water sampling and CTD casts carried out by IMOS since 2009. Sampling under CSIRO was undertaken at intervals of one to several weeks, and under IMOS, sampling is approximately monthly. Temperature measurements were taken from reversing thermometers by CSIRO, and from profiling CTDs by IMOS. These are combined into a single continuous timeseries, for measurements at the surface and depths up to 50m. Currently this product is only available for the Maria Island NRS. Located off the east coast of Maria Island in Tasmania, the station has provided the longest high quality ocean time series in the Southern Hemisphere, consisting of biogeochemical samples collected since 1944 and high-frequency moored instrument data since 2008..