SPURS-2 research vessel CTD profile data for E. Tropical Pacific R/V Revelle cruises

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. CTD (Conductivity, Temperature, Depth) casts were undertaken at stations on each of the two R/V Revelle cruises during SPURS-2. These shipboard lowered CTD probes provide continuous conductivity, salinity, and temperature vertical profile observations at fixed sampling locations. There were a total of 50 and 14 CTD casts made during the first and second R/V Revelle cruises respectively, and the data files available here are for continuous CTD profile data for each of the individual casts deployed. All CTD data were calibrated using shipboard salinometers using IAPSO standard seawater.