Your Objective

Use salinity data across a summer to determine if there are relationships in the depth and shape of the halocline over time between three different regions of the North Atlantic Ocean.



Data Tips

When the site loads, you are able to daily salinity profiles from June 1, 2015 from the Coastal Pioneer Array (Temperate Inshore & Offshore Shelf), with an empty graph for the Irminger Sea Array (Polar Deep Basin) as data are not available from June 1, 2015. You can interact with the data by:

As a note, each day graphs as a different color.

Questions for Thought

Orientation Questions
  • How can you know what date the data are from that you are looking at in each graph?
  • What is the overall range of salinity data you are able to observe in each graph?
  • What is the overall range of depth data you are able to observe in each graph?
  • What is the overall time range are you able to observe in each graph?
Interpretation Questions
  • What similarities and differences did you find in patterns of halocline depth over time between these Temperate Shelf and Polar Plain locations in the North Atlantic Ocean?
  • What other questions do you have about patterns of changes in the depth of the halocline in the summer across the ocean from these data?

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 instruments:

Download this Dataset

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.