SEQUAL Format This format is designed as a mean of submitting full resolution digital XBT data to the TOGA / WOCE data Center. This format is a simplified version of the format which was designed to submit XBT data to the US National Oceanographic Data center during the FOCAL/SEQUAL experiment. It is a format which has been accepted by several NODCs as being acceptable for input. This record layout is a simple confuguration consisting of a number of header information fields followed by "n" numbers of Depth-Temperature pairs and blank padded to the specified record length. Due to the different probe types and sampling frequencies used, we recommend the two following unit record lengths to reduce the amount of padding necessary: Probe Type Resolution Unit record size T4 (460m) 1 meter 4600 T7 (760m) 2 meters 4600 T4 1 meter 13200 T7 2 meters 13200 For submission of XBT data in this format, the submitter must adhere to the format as defined and to the following requirements: 1. The XBT data should be as far as possible a copy of the original data, as recorded on board by the computer. However, or in case of mutual digitizing of the data, it is recommended not to exceed a 1 meter resolution. 2. The XBT data should be cleaned of all spikes and truncated to remove erroneous data resulting from instrument failure or impacting the ocean floor. However, excessive corrections such as suppression of doubtful inversions or data interpolations over large erroneous parts of the profile must be avoided. 3. There should be no blank temperature or depth values within the record. Occasional missing or bad values may be replaced with interpolated values or the entire data cycle deleted. 4. The tape specifications are - 9 tracks, unlabelled, 1600 or 6250 bpi densitees, ASCII or EBCDID codes, one cruise per file (see further recommendations about cruise). 5. All fields marked mandatory must be completed or the data set will not be processed. In addition the following recommendations were agreed upon: a. Platform name It is recommended that this item contain the whole ship's name (limited to ten characters) separated from its international radio codeby a dot (example: LILLOOET.DGRL). The radio code will be used to check for duplicates with bathy messages previously collected only this information will be kept in the data base. The radio code preceded by a dot is therefore sufficient. If unknown, use the GTS code: SHIP. The use of correspondance tables may allow us to recover the radio code. So for instance, the following names will be accepted: LILLOOET.DGRL LILLOOET.SHIP .DGRL .SHIP In any case the ship's name is better than nothing. b. Cruise number It is recommended that this 8 characters number, which can begin with an abreviate of the ship's name (2 or 3 characters), year (2 characters), finish with the consecutive number of cruise during the year (Example: LI85012). Only that last part (4 digits) will be loaded in the data base as the cruise number. This ensures the compatibility with most of the cruise identifiers presently used. It is highly recommended that for ships making round trip (there and back) journeys between two ports, each way constitute a single cruise. This make selection of individual oceanic transects easier for quality control, statistics or user requests. It seemed tempting to inclued in this cruise number a line identification number as defined in the revised figures of the TOGA implementation plan. However, numerous problems might arise for ships doing round trips or unusual transects, for research cruises, or when several ships are routing along the same line. No satisfactory solution has been found until now, unless exageratedly complicated. HEADER RECORD From To Lenght Field Name Description 1 2 2 Record ID (XX) Two character code always "b" b = blank Mandatory 3 3 1 XBT Probe Type (X) one character code : 2 = 760 meter (T7) 4 = 460 meter (T4) 6 = 200 meter 4 18 15 Platform Name (XXXXX) Alphanumeric represen- tation of platform name. eg: LILLOOET.DGRL Left justify. Mandatory 19 26 8 Cruise Number (XXXXX) Alphanumeric representation of the originators cruise number. Left justify. Do not zero fill. 27 30 4 Station Number (XXXXX) Alphanumeric representation of the originators station/consecutive number within cruise. May be used as a sort or search field. Right justify. Zero fill to left. Mandatory 31 37 7 Date (GMT) (YYYMMDD) Year, month, day. Report as GMT. Zero fill to left month and day. Mandatory 38 41 4 Time(GMT) (HHMM) Hours and Minutes Report as GMT Zero fill to left hour and minute. Mandatory 42 46 5 Latitude (DDMMX) degrees and minutes to tenths. Zero fill to left degrees and minutes. Do not zero fill tenths position. Mandatory 47 47 1 Hemisphere (X) "N" or "S". Mandatory 48 53 6 Longitude (DDDMMX) degrees and minutes to tenths Zero fill to left degrees and minutes. Do not zero fill tenths position. Mandatory 54 54 1 Hemisphere (X) "E" or "W". Mandatory 55 58 4 Bottom Depth (XXXX) Water depth to whole meters. Right justify and zero fill to left. Useful in shallow water areas for determining near bottom water temperatures. 59 59 1 Bottom flag (X) one character code to indicate that the XBT probe hit the bottom (B = yes, blank = no or unknown). Useful for obtaining bottom water temperatures. 60 63 4 Count (XXXX) Number of depth-temperature pairs for this XBT Drop. Useful if available. Right justify. DATA RECORD From To Lenght Field Name Description 1 5 5 Depth * (XXXXX) Meters to tenths. If reporting to whole meters, zero fill tenths position. Decimal point is assumed. 6 9 4 Temperature * (XXXX) Degrees centigrade to hundredths. Decimal point is assumed. id Repeated ten times per records Data record length : 90 * Depth-Temperature pairs (9 characters) repeated as many times as necessary. If the "count" field is used the number of Depth-Temperature pairs must equal this value. The last record is padded with blanks.