SPURS-2 Saildrone data for the E. Tropical Pacific field campaign

The SPURS (Salinity Processes in the Upper Ocean Regional Study) project is a NASA-funded oceanographic process study and associated field program that aim to elucidate key mechanisms responsible for near-surface salinity variations in the oceans. The project is comprised of two field campaigns and a series of cruises in regions of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans exhibiting salinity extremes. SPURS employs a suite of state-of-the-art in-situ sampling technologies that, combined with remotely sensed salinity fields from the Aquarius/SAC-D, SMAP and SMOS satellites, provide a detailed characterization of salinity structure over a continuum of spatio-temporal scales. The SPURS-2 campaign involved two month-long cruises by the R/V Revelle in August 2016 and October 2017 combined with complementary sampling on a more continuous basis over this period by the schooner Lady Amber. Focused around a central mooring located near 10N,125W, the objective of SPURS-2 was to study the dynamics of the rainfall-dominated surface ocean at the western edge of the eastern Pacific fresh pool subject to high seasonal variability and strong zonal flows associated with the North Equatorial Current and Countercurrent. Two saildrones were deployed over a month period during the second SPURS-2 R/V Revelle cruise in 2017. Saildrone is a state-of-the-art, remotely guided, wind and solar powered unmanned surface vehicle (USV) capable of long distance deployments lasting up to 12 months. It is equipped with a suite of instruments and sensors providing high quality, georeferenced, near real-time, multi-parameter surface ocean and atmospheric observations while transiting at typical speeds of 3-5 knots. Saildrone data files are in netCDF format and CF/ACDD/NCEI compliant. They contain the saildrone platform telemetry and near-surface observational data (air temperature, sea surface skin and bulk temperatures, salinity, oxygen and chlorophyll-a concentrations, barometric pressure, wind speed and direction) for the entire cruise at 1 minute temporal resolution.

Data and Resources

Additional Info

Field Value
Maintainer Earthdata Forum
Last Updated September 15, 2026, 04:16 (UTC)
Created April 1, 2025, 19:15 (UTC)
accessLevel public
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harvest_source_id b99e41c6-fe79-4c19-bbc3-9b6c8111bfac
harvest_source_title Science Discovery Engine
identifier 10.5067/SPUR2-SDRON
license https://www.usa.gov/government-works
modified 2026-09-07T22:16:03Z
programCode {026:000}
publisher NASA/JPL/PODAAC;SPURS Project
resource-type Dataset
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source_hash 3ad3f2e1605c5d6ba613f0036dce1dc31b6f16c8eeb6e4ffb63db514a0a67992
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spatial ["CARTESIAN", [{"WestBoundingCoordinate": -125.0, "SouthBoundingCoordinate": 8.5, "EastBoundingCoordinate": -124.5, "NorthBoundingCoordinate": 10.9}]]
temporal 2017-10-16/2017-11-17
theme {"Earth Science"}