The CORA dataset: validation and diagnostics of in-situ ocean temperature and salinity measurements

摘要

The French program Coriolis, as part of the French operational oceanographicsystem, produces the COriolis dataset for Re-Analysis (CORA) on a yearlybasis. This dataset contains in-situ temperature and salinity profiles fromdifferent data types. The latest release CORA3 covers the period 1990 to2010. Several tests have been developed to ensure a homogeneous qualitycontrol of the dataset and to meet the requirements of the physical oceanreanalysis activities (assimilation and validation). Improved tests includesome simple tests based on comparison with climatology and a modelbackground check based on a global ocean reanalysis. Visual quality controlis performed on all suspicious temperature and salinity profiles identifiedby the tests, and quality flags are modified in the dataset if necessary. Inaddition, improved diagnostic tools have been developed – including globalocean indicators – which give information on the quality of the CORA3dataset and its potential applications. CORA3 is available on requestthrough the MyOcean Service Desk (href="http://www.myocean.eu/"target="_blank">http://www.myocean.eu/).