Labrador Sea Deep Convection Experiment
Data Collection
assembled by Gerd Krahmann and Martin Visbeck
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University
News
An iso-file of the CD-ROM can be downloaded via
ISO-file.
Older News
- A data brief describing the data collection has been
published in G-Cubed
(online only journal of the
AGU)
- The data collection is now available on CD-ROM.
To get one, send an e-mail to
Gerd Krahmann.
Introduction
Deep convection is a central component of the thermohaline circulation of the world ocean.
Cooling and salinization of surface waters at high latitudes cause them to sink to great depth.
This cold, dense water then spreads away from the formation site to renew the deep and bottom
waters of the world ocean. The details of the convective process remain largely unknown, however,
because they are difficult to observe and model. The purpose of the Labrador Sea convection
experiment is, by a combination of field observations, laboratory studies, theory and modeling, to
improve our understanding of the convective process and hence the fidelity of parametric
representations used in large-scale models.
Field work in support of the Labrador Sea Convection Experiment
The field work for this experiment had four components:
- floats and drifter, which provide a cost effective platform to continuesly observe
temperature, salinity and aspects of the three dimensional circulation within the
Labrador Sea.
- basin wide hydrographic surveys to map the temperature, salinity and tracer distribution
for a particular time of interest. These cruises are also important to deploy
moorings and float and drifter arrays.
- moored instruments can measure the temperature, salinity and velocities at a fixed point
in space with high temporal resolution. Acoustic tomography can also monitor the
heat content changes for a path between two or more moorings.
- aircraft observations allow for detailed study of the marine boundary layer in the
atmosphere which will provide a calibration for numerical weather prediction
models.
Data
We have here collected data from the scientists who participated in the
Labrador Sea Deep Convection Experiment or who did measurements or experiments
during the same period as the main experiment (1996-1998). The collection
contains three lists of the data sets. One organized
by the Principal Investigator or contributor of the data, one
by the type of the data, and
one
by the number of the dataset.
These three lists can
be accessed directly through links on the top of each html page.
Have a look at the timecoverage of the
datasets. We also created maps with the locations of
velocity measurements,
T and S measurements,
floats and drifters,
meteorological measurements, and
model and ice data.
File format
All data files of the Labrador Sea Deep Convection Experiment data collection are
stored in NetCDF
format. We have tried to make the files and the information stored within as
self-explanatory as possible. There exist several software packages which are
able to read and visualize NetCDF data. A Matlab interface can be found at the
mexcdf homepage.
A great software package to have quick look at NetCDF data is
ncview.
Updates and Errata
This is version 1.0 of the Labsea Data Collection.
If you have the CD-ROM follow this link
to look for updates or Errata.
Look here for the release history of the data you
are looking at.
Acknowledgments
- Thanks go to all direct or indirect contributors:
Eric d'Asaro,
Allyn Clarke,
Russ Davis,
Peter Guest,
Peter Jones,
John Lazier,
Jens Meincke,
Kent Moore,
Peter Niiler,
Brech Owens,
Bob Pickart,
Mark Prater,
Ian Renfrew,
Peter Rhines,
Ray Schmidt,
Friedrich Schott,
Uwe Send,
William Smethie,
and others
- and to the funding agencies:
Office of Naval Research
National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration
National Science Foundation
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
- special thanks again to the
Office of Naval Research
who made this data collection possible.
Reminder
This data has been released for free scientific usage.
We request that you acknowledge the original sources of the data.
We also suggest that
users contact the original sources of the data before publishing own
work with the data as the sources might have updated versions of the data.
An acknowledgement of this data collection would be nice.
Disclaimer
The software, data, and related materials are provided as-is, without warranty of any kind
including warranties of performance or merchantability or fitness for a particular use or
purpose (as set forth in UCC 2312-2313) or for any purpose whatsoever, for the enclosed
product, however used.
In no event shall LDEO/Columbia University be liable for incidental or consequential
damages of any kind, including economic damage or injury to property and lost profits,
regardless of whether LDEO/Columbia University be advised, have reason to know, or in fact
shall know of the possibility.
User bears all risk relating to quality and performance of the software and data.
This is Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory Technical Report LDEO 2003-2 .
Copyright © 2003 Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.
Sponsored by the U.S. Government, ONR Grant N00014-98-1-0302. All rights reserved.
Last change: 21 Apr 2008. Gerd Krahmann
