Metadata Report for BODC Series Reference Number 849575

• 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

These data have no specific confidentiality restrictions for users. However, users must acknowledge data sources as it is not ethical to publish data without proper attribution. Any publication or other output resulting from usage of the data should include an acknowledgment.

If the Information Provider does not provide a specific attribution statement, or if you are using Information from several Information Providers and multiple attributions are not practical in your product or application, you may consider using the following:

"Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v1.0."

Narrative Documents

Neil Brown MK3 CTD

The Neil Brown MK3 conductivity-temperature-depth (CTD) profiler consists of an integral unit containing pressure, temperature and conductivity sensors with an optional dissolved oxygen sensor in a pressure-hardened casing. The most widely used variant in the 1980s and 1990s was the MK3B. An upgrade to this, the MK3C, was developed to meet the requirements of the WOCE project.

The MK3C includes a low hysteresis, titanium strain gauge pressure transducer. The transducer temperature is measured separately, allowing correction for the effects of temperature on pressure measurements. The MK3C conductivity cell features a free flow, internal field design that eliminates ducted pumping and is not affected by external metallic objects such as guard cages and external sensors.

Additional optional sensors include pH and a pressure-temperature fluorometer. The instrument is no longer in production, but is supported (repair and calibration) by General Oceanics.

Specifications

These specification apply to the MK3C version.

Further details can be found in the specification sheet.

Aquatracka fluorometer

The Chelsea Instruments Aquatracka is a logarithmic response fluorometer. It uses a pulsed (5.5 Hz) xenon light source discharging between 320 and 800 nm through a blue filter with a peak transmission of 420 nm and a bandwidth at half maximum of 100 nm. A red filter with sharp cut off, 10% transmission at 664 nm and 678 nm, is used to pass chlorophyll-a fluorescence to the sample photodiode.

The instrument may be deployed either in a through-flow tank, on a CTD frame or moored with a data logging package.

Further details can be found in the manufacturer's specification sheet.

Chelsea Technologies Photosynthetically Active Radiation (PAR) Irradiance Sensor

This sensor was originally designed to assist the study of marine photosynthesis. With the use of logarithmic amplication, the sensor covers a range of 6 orders of magnitude, which avoids setting up the sensor range for the expected signal level for different ambient conditions.

The sensor consists of a hollow PTFE 2-pi collector supported by a clear acetal dome diverting light to a filter and photodiode from which a cosine response is obtained. The sensor can be used in moorings, profiling or deployed in towed vehicles and can measure both upwelling and downwelling light.

Specifications

Further details can be found in the manufacturer's specification sheet.

SeaTech Transmissometer

Introduction

The transmissometer is designed to accurately measure the the amount of light transmitted by a modulated Light Emitting Diode (LED) through a fixed-length in-situ water column to a synchronous detector.

Specifications

• Water path length: 5 cm (for use in turbid waters) to 1 m (for use in clear ocean waters).
• Beam diameter: 15 mm
• Transmitted beam collimation: <3 milliradians
• Receiver acceptance angle (in water): <18 milliradians
• Light source wavelength: usually (but not exclusively) 660 nm (red light)

Notes

The instrument can be interfaced to Aanderaa RCM7 current meters. This is achieved by fitting the transmissometer in a slot cut into a customized RCM4-type vane.

A red LED (660 nm) is used for general applications looking at water column sediment load. However, green or blue LEDs can be fitted for specilised optics applications. The light source used is identified by the BODC parameter code.

Further details can be found in the manufacturer's Manual.

RRS Challenger 121A CTD Data Docmentation

Components of the CTD data set

The CTD data set for cruise CH121A consists of 29 vertical profiles containing the parameters temperature, salinity, chlorophyll, upwelling and downwelling irradiance and attenuance.

Data Acquisition and On-Board Processing

Instrumentation

The CTD profiles were taken with an RVS Neil Brown Mk3B CTD incorporating a pressure sensor, conductivity cell, platinum resistance thermometer and a Beckmann dissolved oxygen sensor (fed by a SeaBird pump). The CTD unit was mounted vertically in the centre of a protective cage approximately 1.5m square. Attached to the bars of the frame were a Chelsea Instruments Aquatracka fluorometer and a SeaTech red light (661nm) transmissometer with a 25cm path length.

Above the frame was a General Oceanics rosette sampler fitted with twelve 10-litre Niskin bottles. The bases of the bottles were 0.75 metres above the pressure head and their tops 1.55 metres above it. One bottle was fitted with a holder for twin digital reversing thermometers mounted 1.38 metres above the CTD temperature sensor.

Above the rosette was a PML 2pi PAR (photosynthetically available radiation) sensor pointing upwards to measure downwelling irradiance. A second 2pi PAR sensor, pointing downwards, was fitted to the bottom of the cage to measure upwelling irradiance. It should be noted that these sensors were vertically separated by 2 metres with the upwelling sensor 0.2 metres below the pressure head and the downwelling sensor 1.75 metres above it.

No account has been taken of rig geometry in the compilation of the CTD data set. However, all water bottle sampling depths have been corrected for rig geometry and represent the true position of the midpoint of the water bottle in the water column.

Data Acquisition

On each cast, the CTD was lowered continuously at 0.5 to 1.0 m s^-1 to the closest comfortable proximity to the sea floor. The upcast was done in stages between the bottle firing depths.

Data were logged by the RVS ABC data logging system. Output channels from the deck unit were logged at 32 Hz by a microprocessor interface (the Level A) which passed time-stamped averaged cycles at 1 Hz to a Sun workstation (the Level C) via a buffering system (the Level B).

On-Board Data Processing

The raw data comprised ADC counts. These were converted into engineering units (volts for PAR meters, fluorometer and transmissometer; ml l^-1 for oxygen; mmho cm^-1 for conductivity; °C for temperature; decibars for pressure) by the application of laboratory determined calibrations. Salinity (Practical Salinity Units as defined in Fofonoff and Millard, 1983) was calculated from the conductivity ratios (conductivity/42.914) and a time lagged temperature using the function described in UNESCO Report 37 (1981).

The data set was submitted to BODC in this form on Quarter Inch Cartridge tapes in RVS internal format for post-cruise processing and data banking.

Post-Cruise Processing and Calibration at BODC

Reformatting

The data were converted into the BODC internal format (PXF) to allow the use of in-house software tools, notably the workstation graphics editor. In addition to reformatting, the transfer program applied the following modifications to the data:

• Dissolved oxygen was converted from ml l^-1 to µM by multiplying the values by 44.66.
• Transmissometer voltages were corrected to the manufacturer's specified voltage by ratio using transmissometer air readings taken during the cruise.
• Transmissometer voltages were converted to percentage transmission by multiplying them by a factor of 20.
• The transmissometer data were converted to attenuance using the algorithm:-

Editing

Reformatted CTD data were transferred onto a high-speed graphics workstation. Using custom in-house graphics editors, downcasts and upcasts were differentiated and the limits of the downcasts and upcasts were manually flagged.

Spikes on all the downcast channels were manually flagged. No data values were edited or deleted; flagging was achieved by modification of the associated quality control flag.

The pressure ranges over which the bottle samples were collected were logged by manual interaction with the software. Usually, the marked reaction of the oxygen sensor to the bottle firing sequence was used to determine this. These pressure ranges were subsequently used, in conjunction with a geometrical correction for the position of the water bottles with respect to the CTD pressure transducer, to determine the pressure range of data to be averaged for calibration values.

Once screened on the workstation, the CTD downcasts were loaded into a database under the ORACLE Relational Database Management System.

Calibration

With the exception of pressure, calibrations were done by comparison of CTD data against measurements made on water bottle samples or from the reversing thermometers mounted on the water bottles as in the case of temperature. In general, values were averaged from the CTD downcasts but where visual inspection of the data showed significant hysteresis values were manually extracted from the CTD upcasts.

All calibrations described here have been applied to the data.

Pressure

The pressure offset was determined by looking at the pressures recorded when the CTD was clearly logging in air (readily apparent from the conductivity channel). No single consistent pressure correction could be found, but the following sub-groups were identified:

NB: CTD cast CP1 was not successfully logged.

Temperature

The CTD temperature was compared with the digital reversing thermometers attached to the instrument frame. The two instruments were found to agree within 0.001 °C. Hence, no correction has been applied to the temperature data.

Salinity

During screening an offset was noted in the salinity trace. This was attributed to the conductivity cell contamination. The following correction has been applied:

No bottle salinity data were collected during this cruise. The salinity calibration (+0.026 PSU) determined for the initial casts of the next cruise leg (CH121B) has been assumed valid for this.

Upwelling and Downwelling Irradiance

The light meters were only used during cruise CH121A for the first 10 CTD casts. The PAR voltages were converted to W m-2 using the following equations determined in August 1995 supplied by RVS.

Note that these sensors have been empirically calibrated to obtain a conversion from W/m² into µE/m²/s, which may be effected by multiplying the data given by 3.75.

Optical Attenuance and Suspended Particulate Matter

The air correction applied for this cruise was based on an air reading obtained during the cruise (4.651V). The manufacturer's voltage for the instrument used (SN103D) was 4.758V.

An empirical correction for baseline drift was required on other SES cruises where SN103D was deployed. Careful examination of the data from this cruise revealed that no such correction was required. However, the problem could be seen to be developing on a number of casts where features that looked like intermediate nepheloid layers were present on the downcast but had disappeared a few minutes later when the upcast was taken. These features were considered to be instrumental artefacts and were flagged suspect.

Large volume samples were taken for gravimetric analysis of the suspended particulate matter concentration. These were used to generate calibrations that expressed attenuance in terms of suspended particulate matter concentrations.

Robin McCandliss (University of Wales, Bangor) undertook this work, under the supervision of Sarah Jones. The optimal approach developed was to base the calibration on samples taken from near the seabed (i.e. those with the minimum content of fluorescent material). The data from all SES cruises where SPM samples were taken were pooled to derive the calibration equation:

This calibration is valid for all SES cruises after and including cruise Charles Darwin CD93A. The clear water attenuance predicted by the equation is 0.336 per m, which agrees well with literature values.

No attempt has been made to replace attenuance by SPM concentration in the final data set. However, users may use the equation above to compute an estimated SPM channel from attenuance when required.

Chlorophyll

200 ml of seawater collected at several depths on each cast were filtered and the papers frozen for acetone extraction and fluorometric analysis on land. The chlorophyll data (range 0.07 to 1.17 mg m^-3) for legs A & B of the cruise were combined in order to produce a calibration. All chlorophyll values below 0.10 mg m^-3 were removed from the data set for calibration purposes. The following relationship was found between extracted chlorophyll levels and corresponding fluorometer voltages:

Dissolved Oxygen

No Winkler titration data were available from this cruise for the calibration of the dissolved oxygen sensor. Consequently, the dissolved oxygen data have been excluded from the final data set.

Data Reduction

Once all screening and calibration procedures were completed, the data set was binned to 2 db (casts deeper than 100 db) or 1 db (casts shallower than 100 db). The binning algorithm excluded any data points flagged suspect and attempted linear interpolation over gaps up to 3 bins wide. If any gaps larger than this were encountered, the data in the gaps were set null.

Data Warnings

No salinity bottle samples were taken and consequently the salinity calibration has been based on data from another cruise (CH121B).

Reference

Fofonoff N.P., and Millard Jr., R.C. 1982. Algorithms for Computation of Fundamental Properties of Seawater. UNESCO Technical Papers in Marine Science 44.

Project Information

Land Ocean Interaction Study (LOIS)

Introduction

The Land Ocean Interaction Study (LOIS) was a Community Research Project of the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). The broad aim of LOIS was to gain an understanding of, and an ability to predict, the nature of environmental change in the coastal zone around the UK through an integrated study from the river catchments through to the shelf break.

LOIS was a collaborative, multidisciplinary study undertaken by scientists from NERC research laboratories and Higher Education institutions. The LOIS project was managed from NERC's Plymouth Marine Laboratory.

The project ran for six years from April 1992 until April 1998 with a further modelling and synthesis phase beginning in April 1998 and ending in April 2000.

Project Structure

LOIS consisted of the following components:

• River-Atmosphere-Coast Study (RACS)
  • RACS(A) - Atmospheric sub-component
  • RACS(C) - Coasts sub-component
  • RACS(R) - Rivers sub-component
  • BIOTA - Terrestrial salt marsh study
• Land Ocean Evolution Perspective Study (LOEPS)
• Shelf-Edge Study (SES)
• North Sea Modelling Study (NORMS)
• Data Management (DATA)

Marine Fieldwork

Marine field data were collected between September 1993 and September 1997 as part of RACS(C) and SES. The RACS data were collected throughout this period from the estuaries and coastal waters of the UK North Sea coast from Great Yarmouth to the Tweed. The SES data were collected between March 1995 and September 1996 from the Hebridean slope. Both the RACS and SES data sets incorporate a broad spectrum of measurements collected using moored instruments and research vessel surveys.

Data Activity or Cruise Information

Cruise

Complete Cruise Metadata Report is available here

Fixed Station Information

Fixed Station Information

LOIS (SES) Repeat Section S

Section S was one of four repeat sections sampled during the Land-Ocean Interaction Study (LOIS) Shelf Edge Study (SES) project between March 1995 and September 1996.

The CTD measurements collected at repeat section S, on the Hebridean Slope, lie within a box bounded by co-ordinates 56° 16.8' N, 9° 40.2 W at the southwest corner and 56° 30.0' N, 8° 10.8' W at the northeast corner.

Cruises occupying section S

Related Fixed Station activities are detailed in Appendix 1

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: LOIS (SES) Repeat Section S

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

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