What is...

The Global Temperature-Salinity Profile Program (GTSPP) is a cooperative international project. It seeks to develop and maintain a global ocean Temperature-Salinity resource with data that are both up-to-date and of the highest quality possible. Making global measurements of ocean temperature and salinity (T-S) quickly and easily accessible to users is the primary goal of the GTSPP. Both real-time data transmitted over the Global Telecommunications System (GTS), and delayed-mode data received by the NODC are acquired and incorporated into a continuously managed database. Countries contributing to the project are Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Russia, and the United States. Canada's Marine Environmental Data Service (MEDS) leads the project, and has the operational responsibility to gather and process the real-time data. MEDS accumulates real-time data from several sources via the GTS. They check the data for several types of errors, and remove duplicate copies of the same observation before passing the data on to NODC. The quality control procedures used in GTSPP were developed by MEDS, who also coordinated the publication of those procedures through the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC). The U.S. NODC performs four functions for the GTSPP:

1. Maintains the global database of temperature and salinity data and provides online access to the data.
2. Adds realtime data supplied by MEDS to the database.
3. Processes delayed mode copies of data by performing the same data quality tests as MEDS, then adds data to the database.
4. Prepares monthly data sets and transfers them by network to participants in the U.S., Australia and France, as well as to requestors.
   

In addition to MEDS and NODC, three science centers participate in the project by independently evaluating the delayed-mode data sets for the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic Oceans. Australia's Commonwealth Scientific, Industrial and Research Organization (CSIRO), the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO), and NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic & Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) perform this function as Data Assembly Centers for the World Ocean Circulation Program, which GTSPP supports.

GTSPP Contributors

The most important contributors are the collectors of the original data. Without their efforts, this compilation of data and information would not have been possible.

Thanks are also due to agencies who have provided data feeds and ideas in the development and running of the system. These include the Japanese Oceanographic Data Centre, the Japanese Meteorological Agency, the Bundesamt für Seeschiffahrt, the Australian Oceanographic Data Centre, the Surface and Subsurface Data Centre in Brest, the U.S. Fleet Numerical Oceanographic Center. A major data contributor is the Ship of Opportunity Program ( SOOP).

Agencies that have been important contributors in the development of the GTSPP system are presented below. Each participating agency carries out a number of functions in handling the data for the GTSPP. With each of the partners listed below a short description of their main contribution to the programme is provided. You are encouraged to contact any of the people listed here for more information. If you wish to provide data to the archive, or to get data in either real-time or delayed mode, you can contact any of the data centres involved.

Data

The GTSPP web site provides access to real-time data sets or best copy data sets.

Deployed the GTSPP Web Interface (GWI) appliation which allows users to subset the GTSPP data of their interests. The GWI is available at http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/gtspp/gtsppform01.cgi

Project Management

The GTSPP Programme is Chaired by Dr Charles Sun (USA) (since May 2007)
(see Dr Sun's details in OceanExpert )

Before that date, Mr Robert Keeley (Canada) was the Chair.
(see Mr Keeley's details in OceanExpert)

Documentation and Meeting reports

html on GTSSPP web site	Ad Hoc Session of the Joint IOC-WMO Steering Group on Global Temperature-Salinity Porfile Program, Southampton, UK, 27 Sep, 2004
	GTSPP Annual Report for 2003 (2003) - by R. Keeley (Canada), C. Sun (USA) and L. Petit de la Villeon (France)
	GTSPP Annual Report for 2002 (2002) - by R. Keeley (Canada), C. Sun (USA) and L. Petit de la Villeon (France)
	Global Temperature-Salinity Profile Programme (GTSPP) - Overview and Future (IOC Technical Series 49) - by J.R. Wilson 1998
	JOINT IOC-WMO STEERING GROUP ON GLOBAL TEMPERATURE-SALINITY PILOT PROJECT, Fourth Session, Washington DC, USA, 16-19 April 1996 (IOC/INF-1033) 1996
	GTSPP Real-Time Quality Control Manual (IOC Manuals and Guides 22) 1990

Other Documents available on the GTSPP web site HERE

Visit the GTSPP web site for more information, data and documentation:

Information collect from GTSPP website at NOAA [ http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/GTSPP/index.html ] dated 3-Feb-2005