Data access

Argo data sources

There are many sources of Argo data depending on the desired format, source and application. A complete presentation is available on https://argo.ucsd.edu/data

Ftp, https, s3 data services

Argo data are freely available from US-Godae and Coriolis GDAC sites with ftp, https or s3 protocols.

Data format

Argo data, metadata, technical data are managed in NetCDF files.
The index files list and provide a short description the NetCDF files content. The index files format is ASCII “csv” (comma separated values).
The description of the Argo formats, the file naming conventions and more are documented in

Organization

GDACs are continuously updated in real-time and delayed mode with data from Data Assembly Centers (DACs). The Argo GDAC dataset provides 3 “views” of the data profiles:

  • DAC: a directory per data assembly center / a directory per profiler / a file per profile
  • GEO: a directory per ocean / a directory per year in the ocean / a directory per month of the year / a directory per day of the month / a file per profile of the day
  • LATEST_DATA: a directory per year / a directory per month of the year / a directory per day of the month / a file per profile of the day

Argo data selection

Argo Data Selection is a web interface to discover, select and subset Argo data. Your selection can be downloaded as NetCDF or CSV files.

Argo floats dashboard

Argo Floats Dashboard is a web interface to discover Argo floats with metadata, maps, graphics and technical alerts.

Argo DOI, Digital Object Identifier

A digital object identifier (DOI) is a unique identifier for an electronic document or a dataset.
Argo data-management assigns DOIs to its documents and datasets for two main objectives:

  • Citation: in a publication the DOI is efficiently tracked by bibliographic surveys
  • Traceability: the DOI is a direct and permanent link to the document or data set used in a publication

Argo floats data and metadata from Global Data Assembly Centre (Argo GDAC)

  • https://doi.org/10.17882/42182

Argo synchronization service

The rsync server “vdmzrs.ifremer.fr” server provides a synchronization service between the “dac” directory of the GDAC with a user mirror. The “dac” index files are available from “argo-index”.

From the user side, the rysnc service:

  • Downloads the new files
  • Downloads the updated files
  • Removes the files that have been removed from the GDAC
  • Compresses/uncompresses the files during the transfer
  • Preserves the files creation/update dates
  • Lists all the files that have been transferred (easy to use for a user side post-processing)

Examples

Synchronization of a particular float, based on the data centre in charge of data processing:

  • rsync -avzh --delete vdmzrs.ifremer.fr::argo/coriolis/69001 /home/mydirectory/…
  • rsync -avzh --delete vdmzrs.ifremer.fr::argo/aoml/1900050 /home/mydirectory/…
  • rsync -avzh --delete vdmzrs.ifremer.fr::argo-index/ /home/mydirectory/…
  • Synchronization of the whole dac directory of Argo GDAC
    • rsync -avzh --delete vdmzrs.ifremer.fr::argo/ /home/mydirectory/…

Erddap data server

Erddap is NOAA’s data server to scientific data Erddap is a data server that gives you a simple, consistent way to download subsets of scientific datasets in common file formats and make graphs and maps. This particular Erddap installation has oceanographic data (for example, data from Argo floats, satellites and buoys).

Thredds data server

Unidata’s Thredds Data Server (TDS) is a web server that provides metadata and data access for scientific datasets, using OPeNDAP, OGC WMS, WCS, HTTP protocols.