Table 1. Recommended column header abbreviations, recommended units, and brief descriptions, for discrete chemical oceanographic observations. In this table, CTD refers to the group of instruments for measuring conductivity (salinity), temperature, and depth, and CTD-rosette to the complete system of Niskin bottles (used for seawater sampling) on a frame together with the CTD. "N/A" means not applicable. "DP" is short for decimal places, or the number of digits after the decimal point. For more information, please check out Jiang et al., 2022.
| Abbreviation [unit] |
Full unit | DP | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| EXPOCODE | N/A | N/A | Expedition code consists of the four-digit International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) platform code and the date of departure from port (UTC) in ISO8601 format (YYYYMMDD). For example, a research expedition onboard NOAA Ship Ronald H. Brown (ICES code: 33RO) leaving the port on August 27, 2015 (Coordinated Universal Time, or UTC) would have an EXPOCODE of 33RO20150827. |
| Cruise_ID | N/A | N/A | Cruise identification is the particular ship cruise number or other alias for the cruise. A Cruise_ID (e.g., A16N2013) could consist of a Section_ID (A16N) and the sampling year (e.g., 2013), if only one section is covered during the cruise. |
| Section_ID | N/A | N/A | Identification for a cruise section/leg (e.g., A16N, or P02). |
| Station_ID | N/A | N/A | Station identification. Numerical Station_IDs without letters are recommended to facilitate future QC efforts. |
| Cast_number | N/A | N/A | Cast number, where a cast is the lowering of equipment over the side at one station, e.g., CTD, net tow, etc. Cast_number should be sequential and restart with 1 for each station. |
| Rosette_position | N/A | N/A | Rosette position refers to the position number around the CTD-rosette (e.g., 1 of a 1-12, or 1-24, or 1-36 number). |
| Niskin_ID | N/A | N/A | Niskin_ID is a unique alphanumeric identifier assigned to only that Niskin bottle over the duration of the expedition. |
| Niskin_flag | N/A | N/A | Quality control flag for tracking problems with Niskin closure and integrity. |
| Sample_ID | N/A | N/A | A sample identifier (Sample_ID), which uniquely identifies a row of data during the subsequent QC and interpretation process, is often generated by concatenating the Station_ID, Cast_number, and Rosette_position, according to: Sample_ID = Station_ID × 10000 + Cast_number × 100 + Rosette_position. For example, at station 15, the 2nd cast, a Rosette_position of 3 will have a Sample_ID of 150203. |
| Year_UTC | N/A | 0 | Calendar year in UTC when Niskin bottles at a specific depth are triggered |
| Month_UTC | N/A | 0 | Calendar month in UTC when Niskin bottles at a specific depth are triggered |
| Day_UTC | N/A | 0 | Calendar day in UTC when Niskin bottles at a specific depth are triggered |
| Time_UTC | [hh:mm:ss] | N/A | Time in UTC (hh:mm:ss) when Niskin bottles at a specific depth are triggered |
| Yearday_UTC | N/A | 2 | Yearday refers to the day number in an annual cycle. (e.g., 06:00 on Jan 1 means yearday = 1.25, 18:00 on Dec 31 means yearday = 366.75 in a leap year). Note, Yearday_UTC starts with 1, instead of 0. It can be calculated according to this equation: Yearday_UTC = datefunction(Year_UTC, Month_UTC, Day_UTC) - datefunction(Year_UTC, 1, 1) + Time_UTC + 1, where, “datefunction” is the date function of a program (e.g., in Excel, the datefunction would be “DATE”). |
| Latitude | decimal degrees |
4 | Latitude in decimal degrees North (negative for southern hemisphere) when Niskin bottles at a specific depth are triggered |
| Longitude | decimal degrees |
4 | Longitude in decimal degrees East (negative for western hemisphere) when Niskin bottles at a specific depth are triggered |
| Depth_bottom | m | 0 | Bottom water depth of the sampling station |
| CTDPRES | dbar | 1 | Hydrostatic pressure recorded from CTD at the depth where the sample is taken |
| Depth | m | 1 | Depth at which a sample is taken. It can be approximated from CTDPRES and Latitude using the TEOS-10 equation. |
| CTDTEMP_ITS90 | deg_C | 3 | In situ temperature recorded from CTD on the ITS-90 scale. If the temperature scale is IPTS-68, this term should be replaced with “CTDTEMP_IPTS68”. |
| CTDTEMP_flag | N/A | N/A | Quality control flag for CTDTEMP |
| CTDSAL_PSS78 | N/A | 3 | Salinity calculated from conductivity recorded with CTD using the equation of the Practical Salinity Scale of 1978. CTDSAL_PSS78 is unitless. |
| CTDSAL_flag | N/A | N/A | Quality control flag for CTDSAL |
| Salinity_PSS78 | N/A | 3 | Salinity calculated from conductivity measured from discrete bottles using the equation of the Practical Salinity Scale of 1978. Salinity_PSS78 is unitless. |
| Salinity_flag | N/A | N/A | Quality control flag for Salinity_PSS78 (see Table 2) |
| CTDOXY | umol/kg | 1 | Dissolved oxygen (O2) content from oxygen sensors mounted on the CTD |
| CTDOXY_flag | N/A | N/A | Quality control flag for CTDOXY |
| Oxygen | umol/kg | 1 | Dissolved oxygen (O2) content measured from discrete-bottle-based Winkler titration |
| Oxygen_flag | N/A | N/A | Quality control flag for Oxygen |
| DIC | umol/kg | 1 | Total dissolved inorganic carbon content |
| DIC_flag | N/A | N/A | Quality control flag for DIC (see Table 2) |
| TA | umol/kg | 1 | Total alkalinity content |
| TA_flag | N/A | N/A | Quality control flag for TA |
| pH_T_measured | N/A | 4 | pH measured on Total Scale (T) at measurement temperature and 1 atmosphere pressure (0 dbar applied pressure) using spectrophotometric methods. If the pH is measured on the seawater, free, or NBS scale, replace “T” with SWS, F, or NBS, respectively. For pH measurements made using electrodes, “pH_T_measured (electrode)” should be used instead. |
| TEMP_pH | deg_C | 2 | Temperature at which the pH_TS_measured value is measured |
| pH_flag | N/A | N/A | Quality control flag for pH_TS_measured |
| Carbonated_measured | umol/kg | 1 | Dissolved carbonate ion content ([CO32-]) at measurement temperature and 1 atmosphere pressure (0 dbar applied pressure). |
| TEMP_Carbonate | deg_C | 2 | Temperature at which the Carbonate_measured value is measured |
| Carbonate_flag | N/A | N/A | Quality control flag for Carbonate_measured |
| fCO2_measured | uatm | 1 | Fugacity of carbon dioxide (fCO2) in air that is in equilibrium with seawater measured from discrete bottles at measurement temperature and 1 atmosphere pressure (0 dbar applied pressure). |
| TEMP_fCO2 | deg_C | 2 | Temperature at which the fCO2_measured value is measured |
| fCO2_flag | N/A | N/A | Quality control flag for fCO2_measured |
| Silicate | umol/kg | 2 | Silicate (total dissolved inorganic silicate: Si(OH)4, H4SiO4, SiO2, Sil) content |
| Silicate_flag | N/A | N/A | Quality control flag for Silicate |
| Phosphate | umol/kg | 2 | Phosphate (total dissolved inorganic phosphate: H2PO4−, HPO42−, PO43−) content |
| Phosphate_flag | N/A | N/A | Quality control flag for Phosphate |
| Nitrate | umol/kg | 2 | Nitrate (NO3-1) content. This term should not be used to indicate nitrate plus nitrite content, although the distinction is generally small because nitrate >> nitrite. |
| Nitrate_flag | N/A | N/A | Quality control flag for Nitrate |
| Nitrite | umol/kg | 2 | Nitrite (NO2-1) content |
| Nitrite_flag | N/A | N/A | Quality control flag for Nitrite |
| Nitrate_and_Nitrite | umol/kg | 2 | Nitrate plus nitrite content |
| Nitrate_and_Nitrite_flag | N/A | N/A | Quality control flag for Nitrate_and_Nitrite |
| Ammonium | umol/kg | 2 | Ammonium (NH4+ and NH3) content |
| Ammonium_flag | N/A | N/A | Quality control flag for Ammonium |
Click here to access the data file (xlsx) example.
* The term "error" is used here to retain historical consistency. Measurement error is in general, unknown and unknowable (ISO JGCM, 2008). If this parameter is provided, it requires added metadata to indicate what was meant by this term, and how its value was estimated.
Citation: Jiang, L.-Q., D. Pierrot, R. Wanninkhof, R. A. Feely, B. Tilbrook, S. Alin, L. Barbero, R. H. Byrne, B. R. Carter, A. G. Dickson, J.-P. Gattuso, D. Greeley, M. Hoppema, M. P. Humphreys, J. Karstensen, N. Lange, S. K. Lauvset, E. R. Lewis, A. Olsen, F. F. Perez, C. Sabine, J. D. Sharp, T. Tanhua, T. W. Trull, A. Velo, A. J. Allegra, P. Barker, E. Burger, W.-J. Cai, C.-T. A. Chen, J. Cross, H. Garcia, J. M. Hernandez-Ayon, X. Hu, A. Kozyr, C. Langdon, K. Lee, J. Salisbury, Z. A. Wang, and L. Xue (2022), Best Practice Data Standards for Discrete Chemical Oceanographic Observations. Frontiers in Marine Science 8: 705638, https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2021.705638.
Acknowledgements: These column headers are a refinement and update to the WHP Exchange format of the World Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE) Hydrographic Program with updates and refinements by the Climate and Ocean-Variability, Predictability, and Change (CLIVAR) and the Carbon Hydrographic Data Office (CCHDO) of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
Comments: If you find any errors, or have a new term you want to add to this table, please feel free to send an email to Liqing.Jiang (a) noaa.gov. Thank you!
