Measurement of the heat content of the air.

• CF Standard Name: air_temperature

• Units: °C (the CF standard calls for units of °K).

• Epic Code: 21

ADCP variable. Correlation is a measure of the pulse-to-pulse correlation in a ping for each depth cell, indicating the validity or confidence in the data. Low values will increase noise level or increase variability in velocity data and reduce the measurement accuracy.

• CF Standard Name:

• Units: none

• Epic Code (beams 1, 2, 3, 4): 1285, 1286, 1287, 1288

Numeric code stating whether or not a bloom is occuring. Produced daily. Currently allowed values are

First numeric value in a line in the Campbell input file.

The instruments that monitor Chlorophyll fluorescence emit specific wavelengths of light into a water column causing phytoplankton to fluoresce. The fluorescence is an important estimate of phytoplankton biomass and measurements can also be scaled to monitor chlorophyll concentration. This measurement is relevant to issues of aquaculture, eutrophication (over abundance of nutrients), primary production, fisheries, and ecosystem health.

• CF Standard Name:

• Units: micrograms/liter

• Epic Code: 933

Measured in oceanographic conventions (direction into which the water flows, measured from true north).

• CF Standard Name: direction_of_sea_water_velocity

• Units: angular_degrees (CF:degree)

• Epic Code: 310

Magnitude of current velocity.

• CF Standard Name: sea_water_speed

• Units: cm/s (CF:m/s)

• Epic Code: 300

Description needed.

• CF Standard Name: eastward_seawater_velocity

• Units: cm/s (CF:m/s)

• Epic Code: 1205

Description needed.

• CF Standard Name: northward_seawater_velocity

• Units: cm/s (CF:m/s)

• Epic Code: 1206

Depth where only a specific percentage of the total photosynthetically available radiation can penetrate.

• CF Standard Name:

• Units: meters

• Epic Code:

The diffuse attenuation coefficient, averaged over the depth range from just below the sea surface (z = 0-) to depth z in meters, is required to calculate the attenuation of downwelling spectral irradiance.

• CF Standard Name:

• Units: m-1

• Epic Code:

The diffuse attenuation coefficient, averaged over the depth range from just below the sea surface (z = 0-) to depth z in meters, is required to calculate the attenuation of downwelling photosynthetically available radiation.

• CF Standard Name:

• Units: none

• Epic Code:

Dissolved oxygen refers to the volume of oxygen that is contained in water. Oxygen enters the water by photosynthesis of aquatic biota and by the transfer of oxygen across the air-water interface. The amount of oxygen that can be held by the water depends on the water temperature, salinity, and pressure. Gas solubility increases with decreasing temperature (colder water holds more oxygen). Gas solubility increases with decreasing salinity (freshwater holds more oxygen than does saltwater). Both the partial pressure and the degree of saturation of oxygen will change with altitude . Finally, gas solubility decreases as pressure decreases. Thus, the amount of oxygen absorbed in water decreases as altitude increases because of the decrease in relative pressure (Smith, 1990).

Once absorbed, oxygen is either incorporated throughout the water body via internal currents or is lost from the system. Flowing water is more likely to have high dissolved oxygen levels than is stagnant water because of the water movement at the air-water interface. In flowing water, oxygen-rich water at the surface is constantly being replaced by water containing less oxygen as a result of turbulence, creating a greater potential for exchange of oxygen across the air-water interface. Because stagnant water undergoes less internal mixing, the upper layer of oxygen-rich water tends to stay at the surface, resulting in lower dissolved oxygen levels throughout the water column. Oxygen losses readily occur when water temperatures rise, when plants and animals respire, and when microbes aerobically decompose organic matter.

• CF Standard Name: none

• Units: ml/l

• Epic Code: 60

Ed is the measured downwelling irradiance at wavelength lambda and depth z.

• CF Standard Name:

• Units: microwatts/cm^2/nm

For the complete document, see [ Sylvania ].

• CF Standard Name:

• Units: micromoles/meter^2/second

Dominant period is the period with maximum energy and is always either the swell period or the wind-wave period.

• CF Standard Name: period

• Units: seconds

• Epic Code: 4063

Estimate of ADCP Velocity Errors.

• CF Standard Name: none

• Units: cm/s

• Epic Code: 1201

An indicator of the intensity of the backscatterered acoustic signal, for each ADCP beam, in counts, where each count is about 0.45 dB.

• CF Standard Name: none

• Units: none

• Epic Code (four beams): 1221, 1222, 1223, 1224

The volume of oxygen gas (STP) absorbed from humidity-saturated air at a total pressure of one atmosphere, per unit volume of the liquid at the temperature of measurement.

• CF Standard Name: none

• Units: ml/l

• Epic Code: 64

The percent-good data field is a data-quality indicator that reports the percentage (0-100) of good data collected for each depth cell of the velocity profile.

• CF Standard Name: none

• Units: %

• Epic Codes (four beams): 1270, 1271, 1272, 1273

Ratio of Dissolved Oxygen to Oxygen Saturation.

• CF Standard Name: none

• Units: percent

• Epic Code: 62

Description needed.

The Practical Salinity Scale defines salinity in terms of the conductivity ratio of a sample to that of a solution of 32.4356 g of KCl at 15°C in a 1 kg solution. A sample of seawater at 15°C with a conductivity equal to this KCl solution has a salinity of exactly 35 practical salinity units (psu). A typical measurement far out in the ocean might be around 34.7, but near shore measurements might be expected to be 31-32 due to fresh water discharge.

• CF Standard Name: sea_water_salinity

• Units: PSU (practical salinity units)

• Epic Code: 41

Sigma T is basically the density of seawater. The density of seawater at atmospheric pressure usually varies between 1025 and 1028 kilograms per cubic meter, and since the variability is so small, oceanographers typically subtract of 1000 to get a value between 25 and 28.

• CF Standard Name: sea_water_density

• Units: kg/m³

• Epic Code: 70

The average height of the highest third of the waves.

• CF Standard Name: sea_height_of_wind_and_swell_waves

• Units: meters

• Epic Code: 4061

The angle between the local zenith and the line of sight to the sun.

• CF Standard Name: none

• Units: radians

• Epic Code:

Description needed.

Measurement of the heat content of the water. This is slightly different from sea surface temperature (SST) as measured by such satellites as AVHRR or MODIS. SST is a valid measurement for the upper skin of the ocean surface, typically the top 1 millimeter or less. The buoy water temperatures typically come in at a variety of depths.

• CF Standard Name: sea_water_temperature

• Units: celsius (the CF standard calls for units of K).

• Epic Code: 20

The total transmitted light to incident light.

• CF Standard Name:

• Units: percent

• Epic Code:

Upwelling irradiance beneath the sea surface.

• CF Standard Name:

• Units: microwatts/cm²/nm/steradian

• Epic Code:

Upward component of current velocity.

• CF Standard Name: upward_seawater_velocity

• Units: cm/s (CF:m/s)

• Epic Code: 1204

The purpose of the visibility observation is to identify reduced visibility events. For readings that come in at 3000 meters, it is implied that the visibility is 3000 meters or greater.

An observational value for visibility is based upon a "homogeneous" air mass and not specific to any given direction. For example, if a cloud bank pops in front of the sensor on an otherwise clear-as-can-be day, the visibility might be reported as 3000m because the local air mass in general is still clear, but the visibility in the direction of said cloud bank might not be 3000 meters.

Remember, visibility is not reported in a directional sense here!

• CF Standard Name: visibility_in_air

• Units: meters

• Epic Code: none

Follows meteorological conventions (direction from which the wind blows, measured from true north). See wind_speed.

• CF Standard Name: wind_from_direction

• Units: angular degrees

• Epic Code: 410

Maximum measured wind speed over the observation interval.

• CF Standard Name:

• Units: m/s

• Epic Code: 402

One would think that this is just how fast the wind is moving past the anemometer, but no. Quoting NDBC,

Both methods are employed, and in fact both variables are archived in the sensor-raw NetCDF files, but only wind_speed_sc (scalar average) is reported as "wind speed" and wind_direction_uv (unit vector method) as "wind direction".

• CF Standard Name: wind_speed

• Units: m/s

• Epic Code: 401