Southern Ocean CTD data collected from the CASO cruise of the Aurora Australis, 2007-2008

A total of 131 CTD vertical profile stations were taken on au0803, and 73 CTD station were taken on au0806, most to within 20 metres of the bottom. During the 2 cruises, over 2900 Niskin bottle water samples were collected for the measurement of salinity, dissolved oxygen, nutrients (phosphate, nitrate+nitrite and silicate), 18O, CFC's, dissolved inorganic carbon, alkalinity, 14C, dissolved organic carbon, density (i.e. analysis of the effect of water composition on water density), germanium/silica/boron isotopes, trace metals, neodymium, chlorophyll-a, cell counts, pigments, genetic analyses, and other biological parameters, using a 24 bottle rosette sampler.

Full depth current profiles were collected by an LADCP attached to the CTD package, while upper water column current profile data were collected by a ship mounted ADCP. Data were also collected by the array of ship's underway sensors. This report describes the processing/calibration of the CTD data, and details the data quality.

An offset correction is derived for the underway sea surface temperature and salinity data, by comparison with near surface CTD data. CTD station positions are shown in Figures 1 and 2, while CTD station information is summarised in Table 1. Mooring and drifter deployments/recoveries are summarised in Table 14.

Mooring data from the Adelie Depression deployments are discussed in the mooring data reports Rosenberg (unpublished report, 2009) and Meijers (unpublished report, 2009). Further cruise itinerary/summary details can be found in the voyage leader reports (Australian Antarctic Division unpublished reports: Riddle, V3 2007/08 VL report; Rintoul, V6 2007/08 VL report). Hydrochemistry and CFC cruise reports are in Appendix 1 and Appendix 2.

Details about the data are available in a readme file and a full report in the download file.