GTSPP Quality Controlled Subsurface Temperature & Salinity Data


1 Introduction

	The third session of the NEAR-GOOS Coordinating Committee (August 1998,
Beijing) recognized that data quality control is an important aspect to be
considered within the NEAR-GOOS system in order to ensure the effective use of
the oceanographic data provided by the system. The Committee agreed that 
cooperation with the Global Temperature and Salinity Profile Project (GTSPP,
see https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/products/global-temperature-and-salinity-profile-programme) should be carried out as
a trial for the moment. At a later stage, a data quality control procedure
might be incorporated into the NEAR-GOOS system. Therefore, the dataset
provided in this directory should be regarded as experimental data and we would
highly appreciate the feedback from the users who use the GTSPP dataset for the
consideration on the future quality control issue for NEAR-GOOS.

	This directory contains temperature and salinity profile observation
data extracted from the quality controlled dataset provided by Marine
Environmental Data Service (MEDS) of Canada, which is responsible for real
time data collection and quality control within GTSPP.



2 Data format and files

	MEDS operationally collects and processes the temperature and
salinity profile data in the forms of WMO codes, such as BATHY, TESAC messages
via GTS to make quality controlled datasets. MEDS sends them to the NEAR-GOOS
Regional Real Time Data Base (RRTDB) every few days. The dataset contains
not only the observed values themselves but also the information on the data
which should be added to or deleted from or replaced with the archives. RRTDB
extracts the all data in the area from 110E to 180E and north of 20N, and
processes these update data accordingly to maintain a single file to contain
all the most updated data for the last three months, using the add/delete/
replace information.

	The file name, gtspp.updtMay19, for example, means that the file holds
the data updated based on the all information given until 19 May. The data are
provided in the original GTSPP format (see https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/products/global-temperature-and-salinity-profile-programme).

	To reduce the traffic on the INTERNET, we also provide patch files
for the users who retrieve the data regularly and have UNIX system. The patch
file, gtspp.patchMay19, for example, contains the information on the difference
between gtspp.updtMay19 and the data file updated just before 19 May.
	The UNIX command, 'patch' is effective to update the latest updated
file. For example, the following command:

	patch gtspp.data < gtspp.patchMay19

updates the gtspp.data, which is the latest updated file just before 19 May in
the users system, to the same version as the gtspp.updtMay19.