Gulf of Maine - Control Points Used to Validate the Accuracies of the Interpolated Water Density Rasters

This feature dataset contains the control points used to validate the accuracies of the interpolated water density rasters for the Gulf of Maine. These control points were selected randomly from the water density data points, using Hawth's Create Random Selection Tool. Twenty-five percent of each seasonal bin (for each year and at each depth) were randomly selected and set aside for validation. For example, if there were 1,000 water density data points for the fall (September, October, November) 2003 at 0 meters, then 250 of those points were randomly selected, removed and set aside to assess the accuracy of interpolated surface. The naming convention of the validation point feature class includes the year (or years), the season, and the depth (in meters) it was selected from. So for example, the name: ValidationPoints_1997_2004_Fall_0m would indicate that this point feature class was randomly selected from water density points that were at 0 meters in the fall between 1997-2004. The seasons were defined using the same months as the remote sensing data--namely, Fall = September, October, November; Winter = December, January, February; Spring = March, April, May; and Summer = June, July, August.