Abstract:
In support of the Tropical Oceans and Global Atmosphere (TOGA) program, investigators from Woods Hole Oceanographic
Institution (WHOI), NOAA Pacific Marine Envionmental Laboratory and the State Oceanic Administration (SOA) from both
Qingdao (First Institute) and Guangzhou (South China Sea Branch) conducted hydrographic observations aboard the Chinese
Research vessels Xiang Yang Hong 5 and Xiang Yang Hong 14 in the western equatorial Pacific. The objective of this component of
the TOGA program was to document the water mass property distributions of the western equatorial Pacific Ocean and describe the
oceanic velocity field. The four cruises summarized here were conducted during the period November 1985 to June 1988 and are
the first half of an eight cruise repeated survey of the region scheduled to be completed in spring 1990. Conductivity-Temperatue-Depth-Oxygen (CTD/02) stations were collected to a minimum cast depth of 2,500 m or the bottom when shallower. The cruises reoccupied the same stations to provide temporal information. Summarized listings of CTD/O2 data together with selected physical
properties of sea water for these cruises are provided here, as well as a description of the hardware used and an explanation of the
data reduction tehniques employed.
