Changes in Salinity with Depth Exploration
Your Objective
Use salinity data from the surface to 100m from the North Atlantic Ocean to look if there are patterns over time.
- Make a prediction about what changes in salinity with depth you may observe over time at one location.
- Explore the data below to see what you can observe.
Zoom to:
Data Tips
When the site loads, you are able to see daily profiles of salinity data from all of May 2015 from the Coastal Pioneer Array. You can interact with the data by:
- Selecting a different amount of time to look at by choosing between, "1 week," "2 weeks," or "1 month."
- Selecting a different part of the year to explore the data in ways that interest you by moving the highlighted section of the bottom graph to the right or left.
- Zooming in and out of the data to look at different time scales that interest you by changing the width of the highlighted section of the bottom graph to be more or less than a month.
As a note, the color denotes the time of year the salinity data are from (light purple/pink are from May 2015 through blue/dark purple from February 2016).
Questions for Thought
- Across what time periods are you able to observe salinity with depth data in this graph?
- What is the first month and year there are data?
- What is the last month and year there are data?
- What is the overall range of salinity data you are able to observe in this graph?
- What changes or patterns did you observe in salinity with depth over this time period in the Northern Atlantic Ocean?
- When did you see these changes or patterns?
- What questions do you still have about changes in salinity from the surface to down in the water column over time?
Background Information
Click on the images below to learn more about where and how the dataset above was collected.
Dataset Information
The data for this activity was obtained from the following profiling CTD instrument:
- Coastal Pioneer, Upstream Inshore Profiler Mooring (CP02PMUI-WFP01-03-CTDPFK000)
The above datasets were downloaded from the OOI data portal. Complete profiles of the instrument were identified and the profile closest to midnight (GMT) each day was saved. This reduced the overall temporal resolution (and size) of the final dataset but it preserved the raw variability exhibited in individual profiles and measurements.