Product User Manual for In Situ TAC products INSITU_GLO_UV_NRT_OBSERVATIONS_013_048. Issue 2.1

Abstract

This Product User Manual describes the INSITU_GLO_UV_NRT_OBSERVATIONS_013_048 product distributed by the Copernicus Marine Service In Situ Thematic Assembly Centre (CMEMS INS-TAC): how it is built, what is the content, what data services are available to access them, and how to use the files. This product concerns four real-time datasets dedicated to near-surface currents measurements coming from two platform categories (Lagrangian surface drifters and High Frequency radars): ● drifter: near-surface zonal and meridional raw velocities measured by drifting buoys, wind & wind stress components, quality flags and metadada. These surface observations are part of the DBCP’s Global Drifter Program (see Table 1) ● drifter_filt: near-surface zonal and meridional velocities and 3-day filtered (with a Lanczos filter) velocities measured by drifting buoys. All the platforms are gathered together and concatenated in concatenated daily files. ● radar_total: near-surface zonal and meridional raw velocities measured by High Frequency radars (HFR), standard deviation of near-surface zonal and meridional raw velocities, Geometrical Dilution of Precision (GDOP), quality flags and metadata. These surface observations are part of the European HF radar Network (see Mader et al, 2017 and Corgnati et al., 2018) ● radar_radial: near-surface zonal and meridional components of raw radial velocities measured by HFRs, magnitude and direction of near-surface zonal and meridional components of raw radial velocities (measured in the radial directions covered by each of the HFR stations), standard deviation of near-surface zonal and meridional components of raw radial velocities, quality flags and metadata. These surface observations are part of the European HF radar Network (see Mader et al, 2017 and Corgnati et al., 2018) ● Argo: ocean currents derived from the original trajectory data from Argo GDAC (Global Data Assembly Center). Deep current is calculated from floats drift at parking depth, surface current is calculated from float surface drift. The INS-TAC aims at providing a research and operational framework to develop and deliver in situ observations and derived products based on such observations, to address progressively global (GLO) but also regional needs either for monitoring, modelling or downstream service development.