Time series composite CTD profiles from R/V Hermano Ginés cruises in the Cariaco Basin from 1995 through 2017 (CARIACO Ocean Time-Series Program)

Abstract

The CARIACO Ocean Time-Series Program (formerly known as CArbon Retention In A Colored Ocean) started on November 1995 (CAR-001) and ended on January 2017 (CAR-232). Monthly cruises were conducted to the CARIACO station (10.50° N, 64.67° W) onboard the R/V Hermano Ginés of the Fundación La Salle de Ciencias Naturales de Venezuela. During each cruise, a minimum of four hydrocasts were performed to collect a suite of core monthly observations. We conducted separate shallow and deep casts to obtain a better vertical resolution of in-situ Niskin-bottles samples for chemical observations, and for productivity, phytoplankton, and pigment observations. One CTD composite profile was created for each cruise by stitching together the sections of the different cruise's CTD profiles at the depth interval where water samples were obtained. CTD’s Salinity, Oxygen, and Fluorescence where calibrated with in-situ measurements. The composite CTD profiles dataset is a complement of the hydrographic time series data obtained with the Niskin Bottle Samples (https://www.bco-dmo.org/dataset/3093). The following sections describe the methods used in collecting the core observations at the CARIACO station.

For a complete list of measurements, refer to the full dataset description in the supplemental file 'Dataset_description.pdf'. The most current version of this dataset is available at: https://www.bco-dmo.org/dataset/3092