Sea surface temperature and salinity collected aboard the S.A. AGULHAS II and S.A. AGULHAS in the South Atlantic Ocean and Southern Ocean from 2010-12-08 to 2017-02-02 (NCEI Accession 0170743)

This dataset contains sea surface temperature and salinity data collected from 2010 to 2017 in the South Atlantic Ocean and Southern Ocean from S.A. Agulhas and Agulhas-II research vessels, in the framework of South African National Antarctic Programme (SANAP), South African Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) and Italian National Antarctic Research Programme (PNRA) scientific activities. Measurements have been obtained through thermosalinograph (TSG) during several cruises to both Antarctica and sub-Antarctic islands. On-board TSG devices have been regularly calibrated and continuously monitored in-between cruises; no appreciable sensor drift emerged. Independent water samples taken along the cruises have been used to validate the data; salinity measurement error was a few hundredths of a unit on the practical salinity scale. A careful quality control allowed to discard bad data for each single campaign. Furthermore, a sea ice flag has been included in the dataset for identifying valid data which could have been slightly affected by sea ice contamination.