SPURS-2 Neutrally buoyant float data for the E. Tropical Pacific field campaign

The SPURS (Salinity Processes in the Upper Ocean Regional Study) project is a NASA-funded oceanographic process study and associated field program that aim to elucidate key mechanisms responsible for near-surface salinity variations in the oceans. The project is comprised of two field campaigns and a series of cruises in regions of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans exhibiting salinity extremes. SPURS employs a suite of state-of-the-art in-situ sampling technologies that, combined with remotely sensed salinity fields from the Aquarius/SAC-D, SMAP and SMOS satellites, provide a detailed characterization of salinity structure over a continuum of spatio-temporal scales. The SPURS-2 campaign involved two month-long cruises by the R/V Revelle in August 2016 and October 2017 combined with complementary sampling on a more continuous basis over this period by the schooner Lady Amber. Focused around a central mooring located near 10N,125W, the objective of SPURS-2 was to study the dynamics of the rainfall-dominated surface ocean at the western edge of the eastern Pacific fresh pool subject to high seasonal variability and strong zonal flows associated with the North Equatorial Current and Countercurrent. Neutrally buoyant floats (also known as Mixed Layer Floats - MLF) drift and move through the water column providing continuous CTD temperature and salinity profiles and GPS surface position location data. One float was deployed in SPURS-2 during the first Revelle cruise in August 2016 and recovered in December 2016 after 3.5 months about 1800 km east of the central mooring. The MLF data are provided in netCDF file format with standards compliant metadata.