Metadata Report for BODC Series Reference Number 2022445

• Metadata Summary

• Problem Reports

• Data Access Policy

• Narrative Documents

• Project Information

• Data Activity or Cruise Information

• Fixed Station Information

• BODC Quality Flags

• SeaDataNet Quality Flags

Metadata Summary

Problem Reports

No Problem Report Found in the Database

Data Access Policy

Open Data supplied by Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)

You must always use the following attribution statement to acknowledge the source of the information: "Contains data supplied by Natural Environment Research Council."

Narrative Documents

Sea-Bird SBE 37-SM MicroCAT

The SBE 37-SM MicroCAT is a high accuracy conductivity and temperature recorder (pressure optional). Designed for moorings and other long-duration, fixed-site deployments, MicroCATs have non-corroding titanium housings rated for operation to 7000 metres or pressure sensor full scale-range. Communication with the MicroCAT is over an internal, 3-wire, RS-232C link. The MicroCAT's aged and pressure-protected thermistor has a long history of exceptional accuracy and stability (typical drift is less than 0.002° per year). Electrical isolation of the conductivity electronics eliminates any possibility of ground-loop noise.

Specifications

Further information can be found via the following link: SBE 37-SM MicroCAT Datasheet

BODC Data Processing

Data Processing

The data arrived at BODC as individual .mat files containing data collected on moorings OP1, OP2, OP3, OP4, OP5, OP6, OP7, CI1 and CI2. They were submitted as part of an accession which includes data from several mooring instruments e.g. Aquadopp, RCM8, RCM11, RBR, SBE37 and SBE39.

Reformatting

Parameters in the originator's files were reformatted into an internal file format using BODC standard procedures.

The following table lists all the parameters included in the internal format files, showing how the originator's variables as named in the matlab files were mapped to appropriate BODC parameter codes.

No derived parameters were calculated by BODC. Please note that not all parameters are present in all files.

Screening

Quality control flags were automatically added to data outside the expected parameter specific range during the reformatting process. All parameters were then visualised and screened using in house software, and any improbable or missing data point was assigned a quality control flag.

Originator's Data processing

Sampling strategy

Sampling was carried out as part of the BAS LTMS (British Antarctic Survey Long Term Monitoring and Survey) until 2016. From 2016 onwards the moorings are split between 'The Ocean Regulation of Climate by Heat and Carbon Sequestration and Transports (ORCHESTRA)' project and 'Dynamics of the Orkney Passage Outflow (DynOPO)' project.

The projects involve the deployment of moorings CI1, CI2, OP1, OP2, OP3, OP4, OP5, OP6 and OP7 in the Southern Ocean, situated north of Coronation Island and the Orkney Passage in the Weddell and Scotia Sea.

Moorings CI1 and CI2 were deployed from 2005 to 2007 and moorings OP1, OP2, OP3, OP4, OP5 and OP6 have been continuously maintained since 2007 with the addition of OP7 in 2015.

SBE 37 and SBE39 instruments were deployed on the moorings. Data have been collected at variable intervals: 5 minutes interval on the Coronation Island moorings, 7.5 minute interval on the instruments deployed on OP2 and OP3 in 2007 and 15 minute intervals since then. Gaps in the series may be caused by either instruments not being recovered, or data not being collected due to instrument malfunction.

Data processing

Little information is known with regards to the exact details of the calibrations carried out on the mooring data. Data processing, visualisation and calibration were carried out through the use of scripts for Matlab version R2014b produced and ran by the originator.

An offset has been applied some of the channels. The values for each deployment/instrument/channel combination are shown in the table below:

Several instruments deployed in the 2013/15 period show evidence of knock-down but the data colleaction seems to be unnafected. According to the originator some of the moorings were deployed with insufficient buyoancy which caused the knockdowns. These instances are especially visible on moorings OP1 and OP2, Series Reference number 1840205, 1840229, 1840254, 1840266 and 1840278

Several instruments deployed in the 2015/17 period did not have a pressure sensor and used inferred pressure calculated from the closest neigbhouring pressure sensor. This includes five SBE39 instruments (s/n 4413, 4716, 4713, 4418 and 4409) and one SBE37 instrument (s/n 8267).

Several instruments deployed in the 2017/19 period did not have a pressure sensor, therefore no pressure channel was transferred with the data and only a nominal depth is used in the metadata. This includes all SBE39 instruments (s/n 4413, 4409, 0083, 4713, 4418 and 4716) and one SBE37 instrument (s/n 8267).

Project Information

Ocean Regulation of Climate by Heat and Carbon Sequestration and Transports (ORCHESTRA)

The Ocean Regulation of Climate by Heat and Carbon Sequestration and Transports (ORCHESTRA) is a £8.4 million, five year (2016-2021) research programme funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). The aim of the research is to to advance the understanding of, and capability to predict, the Southern Ocean's impact on climate change via its uptake and storage of heat and carbon. The programme will significantly reduce uncertainties concerning how this uptake and storage by the ocean influences global climate, by conducting a series of unique fieldwork campaigns and innovative model developments.

Background

ORCHESTRA represents the first fully-unified activity by NERC institutes to address these challenges, and will draw in national and international partners to provide community coherence, and to build a legacy in knowledge and capability that will transcend the timescale of the programme itself.

It brings together science teams from six UK research institutions to investigate the role that the Southern Ocean plays in our changing climate and atmospheric carbon draw-down. It is led by British Antarctic Survey, in partnership with National Oceanography Centre, British Geological Survey, Plymouth Marine Laboratory, the Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling and the Sea Mammal Research Unit.

The oceans around Antarctica play a critical a key role in drawing down and storing large amounts of carbon and vast quantities of heat from from the atmosphere. Due to its remoteness and harsh environment, the Southern Ocean is the world's biggest data desert, and one of the hardest places to get right in climate models. The ORCHESTRA programme will make unique and important new measurements in the Southern Ocean using a range of techniques, including use of the world-class UK research vessel fleet, and deployments of innovative underwater robots. The new understanding obtained will guide key improvements to the current generation of computer models, and will enhance greatly our ability to predict climate into the future.

The scope of the programme includes interaction of the Southern Ocean with the atmosphere, exchange between the upper ocean mixed layer and the interior and exchange between the Southern Ocean and the global ocean.

Further details are available on the ORCHESTRA page.

Participants

Six different organisations are directly involved in research for ORCHESTRA. These institutions are:

• British Antarctic Survey (BAS)
• National Oceanography Centre (NOC)
• Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML)
• British Geological Survey (BGS)
• Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling (CPOM)
• Sea Mammal Research Unit (SMRU)

GO-SHIP are a third party organisation that, although not directly involved with the programme, will conduct ship based observations that will also be used by ORCHESTRA.

Research details

Three Work Packages have been funded by the ORCHESTRA programme. These are described in brief below:

• Work Package 1: Interaction of the Southern ocean with the atmosphere
  WP1 will use new observations of surface fluxes and their controlling parameters in order to better constrain the exchanges of heat and carbon loss across the surface of the Southern Ocean.

• Work Package 2: Exchange between the upper ocean mixed layer and the interior.
  This work package will combine observationally-derived data and model simulations to determine and understand the exchanges between the ocean mixed layer and its interior.

• Work Package 3: Exchange between the Southern Ocean and the global ocean .
  This WP will use budget analyses of the hydrographic/tracer sections to diagnose the three-dimensional velocity field of the waters entering, leaving and recirculating within the Southern Atlantic sector of the Southern ocean.

• Fieldwork and data collection

  The campaign consists of 12 core cruises on board the NERC research vessels RRS James Clark Ross and RRS James Cook and will include hydrographic/tracer sections conducted across Drake Passage (SR1b), the northern Weddell Sea/Scotia Sea (A23), the northern rim of the Weddell Gyre (ANDREXII) and across the South Atlantic (24S). Section I6S will be performed by GO-SHIP Project Partners. Measurements will include temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, velocity, dissolved inorganic carbon, total alkalinity, inorganic nutrients, oxygen and carbon isotopes, and underway meteorological and surface ocean observations including pCO₂.

  Tags will be deployed on 30 Weddel seals and these will provide temperature and salinity profiles that can be used alongside the Argo data.

  Autonomous underwater ocean gliders will conduct multi-month missions and will deliver data on ocean stratification, heat content, mixed layer depth and turbulent mixing over the upper 1 km, with previously-unobtainable temporal resolution. These gliders will be deployed in the Weddell Gyre and the ACC.

  Field campaigns with the MASIN meteorological aircrafts will be conducted flying out of Rothera and Halley research stations and the Falkland Islands. These campaigns will deliver information on key variables relating to air-sea fluxes (surface and air temperature, wind, humidity, atmospheric CO₂, radiation, turbulent fluxes of heat, momentum and CO₂), in different sea ice conditions and oceanic regimes.

  Eart Observation datasets will be used to inform the programme on the properties of the ocean, sea ice and atmosphere and on interactions between them.

  A cluster of 6 deep ocean moorings in the Orkney Passage will collect year round series of AABW temperatre and transport. This work connects to the NERC funded project Dynamics of the Orkney Passage Outflow (DYNOPO).

  The UK Earth System model (UKESM) and underlying physical model will be used to conduct analyses of heat and carbon uptake and transport by the Southern Ocean and their links to wider climate on decadal timescales.

  An eddy-resolving (1/12°) sector model of the ocean south of 30°S with 75 vertical levels, will be built using the NEMO model coupled to the Los Alamos sea ice (CICE) model. The improvements on the ocean boundary layer will be based from the results from the NERC-funded OSMOSIS project and the inclusion of tides.

  20-5 year runs of an adjoint model will be conducted to determine how key forcings and model states affect the uptake and subduction of heat and carbon by the ocean.

Data Activity or Cruise Information

Data Activity

Orkney Passage Mooring 1 (OP1)

The mooring was deployed at the following positions:

The mooring was deployed on the Orkney Passage on cruise JR16005 on 18 April 2017 and recovery was done on cruise JR18004 on 29 January 2019.

The table below lists the instruments deployed on this mooring:

Related Data Activity activities are detailed in Appendix 1

Cruise

Complete Cruise Metadata Report is available here

Fixed Station Information

Fixed Station Information

Orkney Passage OP1 site

Site OP1 is part of the Orkney Passage mooring array which is an activity covered by the Long Term Monitoring and Survey British Antarctic Survey's (BAS) programme.The data collection is the result of an ongoing collaboration between BAS and the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO).

This site was previously occupied in 2007 by an LDEO mooring (M4) and from 2011 onwards it became BAS's responsibility and was assigned its current name. The recovery/deployment history, including position details is presented below:

Recovery of this mooring was not possible in 2009, during ES033a, cruise due to an unresponsive release. It was re-deployed again in 2011.

Related Fixed Station activities are detailed in Appendix 2

BODC Quality Control Flags

The following single character qualifying flags may be associated with one or more individual parameters with a data cycle:

SeaDataNet Quality Control Flags

The following single character qualifying flags may be associated with one or more individual parameters with a data cycle:

Appendix 1: OP1

Related series for this Data Activity are presented in the table below. Further information can be found by following the appropriate links.

If you are interested in these series, please be aware we offer a multiple file download service. Should your credentials be insufficient for automatic download, the service also offers a referral to our Enquiries Officer who may be able to negotiate access.

Appendix 2: Orkney Passage OP1

Related series for this Fixed Station are presented in the table below. Further information can be found by following the appropriate links.

If you are interested in these series, please be aware we offer a multiple file download service. Should your credentials be insufficient for automatic download, the service also offers a referral to our Enquiries Officer who may be able to negotiate access.