In Situ Thematic Assembly Centre for Marine Service

In Situ TAC

Sea Surface Temperature

In Situ Thematic Assembly Centre (In Situ TAC) for Marine Service is the IN SITU OBSERVATIONAL COMPONENT of The Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service

In Situ TAC counts on up to 7158 active platforms (36384 if counting inactive ones) recovering data from the ocean as, for example, sea water temperature (TEMP) from a wide range of platforms

Latest NRT data - INSTAC Dashboard at
http://www.marineinsitu.eu/dashboard/

Several record-breaking measurements of Sea Surface Temperature where detected in 2017 in the Mediterranean and Ibearia-Biscay-Ireland Seas thanks to the In Situ network of mooring platforms.

Especially noticeable are the records in June (ie. moorings 61198, 61417 & 61280)

Click on the bouy to display the data Check more months by clicking the bottom arrow at the bottom-right corner! ⇓

Same way, it is worth mentioning that in 2017 several moorings reported that the mimimum values of Sea Surface Temperature reached this year were higher than the mean value of the whole previous years since operating; being especially noticeable in February and March

Click on the bouy to display the data Check more months by clicking the bottom arrow at the bottom-right corner! ⇓

Are those small changes in extremes indicators of changes in averages?

"The classic bell curve represents the distribution of all temperatures at a location. The bulk of temperatures — those close to average — sit near the middle of the curve. Record temperatures, which are rare, sit on the fringes, with hot on right and cold on the left. As the world warms from the increase in greenhouse gases, the whole curve shifts to the warmer side, the right. This shift results in a large jump in the number of extremely hot days and a drop in the number of extremely cool days. It also means heat records are more likely to be set than cold records. And it is these extremes that impact our lives." June 2017, Climate Central Flowers in Chania

In Situ data are available for Scientific Research at FTP servers or regional portals:

Important! FTPs are secured. First register as CMEMS user to get the access granted.

Data products available on those FTPs keep exactly the same:

  • data format (netCDF - OceanSites 1.2)
  • data flagging convention
  • ftp structure
  • file naming convention

in order to facilitate selection and processing to final users.

Dive more into this by clicking the bottom arrow at the bottom-right corner! ⇓

Same data format

For each region, the In Situ Distribution Unit distributes all its data and metadata products in netCDFs, format used by up to 1300 institutions for creating, accessing and sharing array-oriented scientific data.

The data files format is an implementation of NetCDF OceanSITES format.

CMEMS lists a number of tools users can use for visualization & manipulation of such files

Our contribution for spreading the word about how-to-handle netCDF format can be found in the material build for training sessions in form of :

flagging convention

NRT quality controls are available here

Quality control flag scale:
Code Meaning Comment
0 No QC performed -
1 Good data All real-time QC tests passed
2 Probably good data -
3 Bad data that are potentially correctable These data are not to be used without scientific correction

flagging convention

Code Meaning Comment
4 Bad data Data have failed one or more of the tests
5 Value changed Data may be recovered after transmission error
6 Not used -
7 Nominal value Data were not observed but reported.Example: an instrument target depth
8 Interpolated value Missing data may be interpolated from neighbouring data in space or time
9 Missing value The value is missing, is not reported, is not applicable

same ftp structure

Each DU distributes all its data and metadata products in NetCDF files on an FTP server sticking with the same structure:

same file naming convention

History Monthly Latest
RR_XX_YY_CODE<_ZZZ>.nc RR_YYYYMM_XX_YY_CODE.nc RR_LATEST_XX_YY_CODE_YYYYMMDD.nc
GL_TS_MO_15001_2010daily.nc IR_200911_TS_DB_44607.nc IR_LATEST_TS_DB_44607_20091117.nc
    Common:
  • RR: region bigram
  • XX: TS (timeseries) or PR (profile)
  • YY: data type
  • CODE: platform code
    Directory-dependent:
  • Timestamp:
    YYYYMMDD (latest)& YYYYMM (monthly)
  • Fixed name: LATEST (latest)
  • _ZZZ: optional subsetting code (history)

Contact Us

INSTAC Web Portal marineinsitu.eu

looking forward hearing from you!