Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

This site is currently in beta, and your feedback is helping shape its ongoing development.

Return to search results

SPURS-2 Rawinsonde meteorological data for the E. Tropical Pacific field campaign R/V Revelle cruises

Published by SPURS Project;NASA/JPL/PODAAC | National Aeronautics and Space Administration | Metadata Last Checked: February 21, 2026 | Last Modified: 2026-02-17
The SPURS (Salinity Processes in the Upper Ocean Regional Study) project is 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 involves 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. A Rawinsonde is a helium balloon carrying meteorological instruments and a radar target, enabling the velocity of atmospheric parameters to be measured. During the first Revelle cruise, rawinsondes were launched every 6-hours, providing a total of 85 profiles of temperature, humidity, wind speed and direction through the marine atmospheric boundary layer within the SPURS-2 domain. Similarly, during the second Revelle cruise, rawinsondes were deployed four-times daily within the study area over the 3-week period. SPURS2 rawinsonde data are available as netCDF, CF-compliant data files.

data.gov

An official website of the GSA's Technology Transformation Services

Looking for U.S. government information and services?
Visit USA.gov