Transports Group Argo Homepage
The Hydrography group at NOCS works heavily with Argo floats and collaborates with other centres worldwide who also use Argo.
Argo can be defined as a global network of profiling floats that use the principles of neutral buoyancy to move through the water column. Currently such floats are used to measure physical ocean parameters such as temperature, salinity, pressure and also current velocity. This selection of measurements differs for different types of Argo floats.
To find out more follow the link to the International Argo Project homepage where information on Argo, the projects and a large amount of Argo data can be found.
Argo at NOCS
This website contains a lot of useful information regarding work at NOCS with Argo floats and references for publications using Argo.
The Argo programme at NOCS falls under Theme 10 - SO5 of Oceans 2025
In accordance with this theme, NOCS endeavours to fulfill the objectives set out for UK institutions.
- ensuring that a leading role is played in developing Argo instrumentation
- ensuring that national and international data acquistion, calibration and dissemination facilitates NERC science
- ensuring that the UK's contribution in this field meets the standards set by international programmes
- supporting the deployment of new floats
Recent Argo activity by NOCS
During cruise JC032 which comprised a trans-atlantic section at a latitude of 24°S, 16 Argo floats were launched at different locations along the transect. The principal aim of this venture was to increase the population of Argo floats in the South Atlantic, in order to augment the quantity and quality of ocean profile data in this location. The launch positions largely depended on the positions of floats that were currently active near the 24°S transect. Out of the 16 Argo floats that were launched during the cruise, 4 of these were designed for near-surface temperature monitoring.
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Site last updated 14:51, 02 July 2010
