University of Washington
ARGO Profiling Drifters

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Automatic data processing & web-page generation
  3. Reliability statistics
  4. Deployment locations for UW ARGO profiling drifters
  5. Argos Data Telemetry
  6. Contact Information
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Introduction

Welcome to the UW NOPP/ARGO website. The profiling drifter data shown on this site are sponsored by the National Ocean Partnership Program (NOPP) in the US. These floats have been deployed as the beginning step in the US ARGO program. ARGO is an international program the will deploy some 3000 profiling drifters in the world ocean for purposes of examining the global scale circulation and air-sea interaction, with the goal of improving climate models and predictions. Approximately half of these floats will be deployed by US institutions. The NOPP/ARGO program is a pilot program to demonstrate the feasibility of carrying out US ARGO. Partners in the NOPP/ARGO program include the University of Washington, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, AOML/NOAA, Webb Research Corporation, and Seascan Inc. As part of the NOPP program it is planned to deploy about two hundred floats by the end of 2001 as a demonstration of ARGO feasibility. All of the US ARGO profiling drifter data are available to the ocean community in near real-time from AOML/NOAA in Miami.

The floats shown on this site are those prepared and deployed by the University of Washington. We are grateful to NOPP, NOAA, NSF and ONR for their continuing support of this work.

Automatic data processing, data distribution, & web-pages generation

This web site contains many thousand dynamic objects that must be updated as new data become available. Examples include postscript files, jpeg images, tables, HTML files, hydrographic profile data, and data distribution services. These objects are automatically generated or maintained in quasi-real-time by an extensible system of autonomous software. Consequently, maintaining this web site requires no regular manual intervention.

Reliability Statistics

The reliability of the floats can be measured in terms of the number of profiles expected during a specified time period as compared to the number actually executed. Floats are expected to last four years. In the statistics below, the number of profiles expected for any given float will not exceed 4-years worth. However, all profiles executed are counted. Hence, floats that continue to function longer than 4 years will mitigate the statistics of floats that fail early. These statistics are presented in the following table (updated daily).

Profiling Drifter Reliability
Profiler Reliability Statistics
for the period from Jul 01 00:01 GMT 2000 to May 15 12:33 GMT 2008.
Group Size Profiles Executed Profiles Expected Reliability (%)
APEX180 11 1125 1518 74.1
APEX260 676 57781 66133 87.4
APF5 1 29 138 21.0
APF7 25 2186 3425 63.8
APF8 425 42809 49165 87.1
APF9 237 13911 15061 92.4
Alkaline(DP) 97 10587 11535 91.8
Apf9a 129 8512 8830 96.4
Apf9i 108 5399 6231 86.6
Iridium 108 5399 6231 86.6
Lithium 358 22720 24125 94.2
R1 1 29 138 21.0
Total 688 58935 67789 86.9

Float 0004 is not included in the above statistics as it was destroyed at time of deployment.

Argos Data Telemetry

The data are recovered from the floats via the Argos system. Most of our floats spend 10 hours transmitting on the surface with one message transmitted every 60 to 72 seconds. This means that the floats transmit from 510 to 615 messages for each profile. Most of these transmissions are lost because no satellite happens to be overhead. In fact, telemetry statistics below show that only 7 to 10 percent of these messages are transmitted when a satellite is overhead. We are experimenting with various factors that affect data telemetry and evaluate the results using many different types of statistics. Some statistics have wider appeal and we have collected several of them in the table below (updated daily). All of these statistics were computed on a per-profile basis.

University of Washington Profiling Drifter ARGOS Receipt Statistics
As of 12:45 GMT on Apr 21, 2008 Average Per-Profile Statistics for ARGOS Data Telemetry
Float
Id		 Profiles
Executed		 Incomplete
Profiles		 Satellite
Passes		 Telemetric
Efficiency		 Messages
Expected		 Messages
Received		 Messages
Missing		 Good
Messages		 Bad
Messages
0001 118 2 1.7% 10 69% 127 97 81% 30 19% 82 85% 14 15%
0002 123 1 0.8% 12 74% 122 105 86% 17 14% 90 86% 15 14%
0003 52 0 0.0% 39 72% 787 624 84% 162 16% 531 85% 93 15%
0004 43 0 0.0% 30 68% 700 508 80% 192 20% 434 85% 74 15%
0005 222 21 9.5% 18 51% 338 223 67% 115 33% 170 76% 53 24%
0006 131 7 5.3% 10 55% 196 134 73% 62 27% 100 75% 34 25%
0007 123 0 0.0% 13 74% 129 112 87% 17 13% 96 85% 16 15%
0009 39 0 0.0% 12 65% 165 122 79% 42 21% 102 83% 21 17%
0010 127 9 7.1% 10 61% 88 67 77% 20 23% 53 79% 14 21%
0013 4 0 0.0% 12 75% 205 181 91% 24 9% 156 83% 25 17%
0014 127 3 2.4% 9 66% 100 79 79% 21 21% 66 83% 13 17%
0015 195 9 4.6% 19 57% 425 286 70% 139 30% 234 82% 52 18%
0016 117 1 0.9% 17 65% 312 238 77% 74 23% 199 83% 39 17%
0018 148 9 6.1% 11 48% 189 122 68% 67 32% 87 71% 34 29%
0019 208 6 2.9% 13 68% 265 204 81% 61 19% 174 85% 31 15%
0024 79 0 0.0% 12 67% 180 138 78% 42 22% 117 85% 20 15%
0027 101 0 0.0% 12 76% 145 124 85% 21 15% 110 88% 14 12%
0028 101 1 1.0% 12 76% 142 122 86% 20 14% 108 88% 15 12%
0029 103 1 1.0% 10 77% 122 107 88% 15 12% 94 88% 13 12%
0030 101 1 1.0% 10 75% 111 95 86% 16 14% 83 87% 12 13%
0031 105 4 3.8% 11 75% 133 104 87% 29 13% 90 87% 14 13%
0032 104 0 0.0% 10 76% 111 97 88% 14 12% 84 87% 13 13%
0033 103 2 1.9% 11 78% 111 99 89% 12 11% 87 88% 12 12%
0041 20 1 5.0% 17 67% 275 181 81% 94 19% 152 83% 29 17%
0052 11 0 0.0% 20 61% 223 171 77% 52 23% 138 80% 33 20%
0053 19 0 0.0% 15 71% 218 150 81% 68 19% 133 88% 17 12%
0270 50 9 18.0% 18 26% 181 111 66% 69 34% 46 40% 66 60%
0402 212 0 0.0% 10 72% 94 82 87% 12 13% 68 83% 14 17%
0404 184 5 2.7% 9 66% 110 82 79% 28 21% 69 84% 13 16%
0405 195 0 0.0% 32 69% 711 535 81% 176 19% 456 85% 79 15%
0406 196 0 0.0% 23 67% 494 381 79% 113 21% 323 85% 58 15%
0407 220 2 0.9% 10 77% 96 85 90% 12 10% 73 86% 12 14%
0408 130 4 3.1% 12 64% 165 126 79% 40 21% 105 81% 21 19%
0418 191 3 1.6% 8 71% 100 83 83% 17 17% 71 85% 12 15%
0419 150 13 8.7% 10 59% 99 75 76% 24 24% 59 78% 16 22%
0420 165 1 0.6% 18 70% 368 282 82% 86 18% 242 86% 40 14%
0421 135 5 3.7% 11 73% 147 126 85% 21 15% 107 85% 19 15%
0422 250 0 0.0% 8 70% 106 88 84% 18 16% 74 84% 14 16%
0423 210 20 9.5% 9 63% 98 73 80% 25 20% 58 79% 15 21%
0424 167 0 0.0% 19 65% 402 300 78% 102 22% 252 84% 48 16%
0452 175 0 0.0% 11 71% 114 99 87% 15 13% 81 82% 18 18%
0453 139 4 2.9% 10 68% 112 90 81% 22 19% 75 83% 15 17%
0454 142 0 0.0% 20 71% 448 327 82% 121 18% 281 86% 46 14%
0455 172 0 0.0% 9 67% 77 68 89% 9 11% 56 75% 12 25%
0456 116 6 5.2% 10 65% 124 99 80% 25 20% 80 80% 19 20%
0457 141 2 1.4% 10 73% 97 86 89% 11 11% 70 81% 16 19%
0458 127 4 3.1% 10 68% 123 100 82% 23 18% 83 83% 16 17%
0459 211 3 1.4% 9 70% 101 80 84% 21 16% 67 84% 13 16%
0477 201 0 0.0% 11 73% 129 112 87% 17 13% 94 84% 18 16%
0478 255 3 1.2% 11 71% 78 66 86% 11 14% 55 82% 12 18%
0479 62 0 0.0% 19 68% 396 294 81% 102 19% 250 85% 44 15%
0481 220 3 1.4% 11 77% 98 79 89% 19 11% 68 86% 11 14%
0544 113 0 0.0% 13 75% 149 129 87% 20 13% 111 86% 18 14%
0559 173 6 3.5% 20 52% 207 150 72% 57 28% 108 71% 42 29%
0581 125 0 0.0% 14 68% 174 143 83% 31 17% 118 82% 25 18%
0582 194 3 1.5% 14 73% 149 121 86% 28 14% 103 85% 18 15%
0583 200 1 0.5% 12 77% 135 119 88% 16 12% 104 88% 15 12%
0586 117 0 0.0% 14 68% 170 141 83% 29 17% 116 82% 25 18%
0589 109 1 0.9% 14 73% 157 134 86% 23 14% 115 86% 19 14%
0591 195 2 1.0% 13 70% 141 118 84% 23 16% 98 83% 20 17%
0592 178 35 19.7% 10 46% 92 59 65% 32 35% 43 70% 17 30%
0593 188 0 0.0% 10 76% 114 101 89% 13 11% 88 86% 14 14%
0594 105 0 0.0% 20 71% 421 322 82% 99 18% 281 87% 41 13%
0595 169 2 1.2% 13 71% 142 112 84% 30 16% 95 85% 17 15%
0632 177 1 0.6% 12 71% 144 124 86% 20 14% 102 82% 22 18%
0635 182 1 0.5% 9 72% 97 83 86% 14 14% 70 84% 13 16%
0640 196 1 0.5% 11 74% 144 125 87% 19 13% 106 84% 20 16%
0641 200 1 0.5% 12 72% 171 131 86% 39 14% 110 83% 22 17%
0642 176 3 1.7% 13 66% 142 117 83% 25 17% 93 80% 24 20%
0643 154 2 1.3% 14 68% 186 149 83% 36 17% 122 82% 27 18%
0644 193 2 1.0% 13 71% 133 113 85% 20 15% 95 84% 18 16%
0645 185 0 0.0% 20 75% 216 192 89% 23 11% 161 84% 31 16%
0646 141 0 0.0% 13 75% 161 140 87% 21 13% 120 86% 20 14%
0648 43 0 0.0% 17 68% 371 271 80% 100 20% 230 85% 41 15%
0649 172 4 2.3% 14 65% 178 137 80% 40 20% 112 81% 26 19%
0650 161 1 0.6% 13 71% 158 132 84% 26 16% 111 84% 21 16%
0651 145 0 0.0% 13 75% 152 131 87% 20 13% 113 86% 19 14%
0652 152 0 0.0% 10 75% 123 108 88% 15 12% 92 85% 16 15%
0654 187 2 1.1% 9 71% 99 85 86% 14 14% 71 83% 14 17%
0804 196 3 1.5% 11 71% 127 108 86% 19 14% 89 82% 19 18%
0805 196 1 0.5% 11 76% 131 116 89% 15 11% 99 86% 16 14%
0807 153 2 1.3% 14 70% 173 142 83% 31 17% 119 84% 23 16%
0809 194 1 0.5% 14 71% 161 134 84% 27 16% 114 85% 20 15%
0820 113 0 0.0% 14 73% 155 132 85% 23 15% 112 85% 20 15%
0821 187 4 2.1% 13 73% 140 119 87% 22 13% 100 84% 19 16%
0822 100 0 0.0% 14 70% 154 129 84% 25 16% 108 84% 21 16%
0823 188 1 0.5% 10 73% 103 88 86% 15 14% 75 85% 13 15%
0824 14 0 0.0% 22 81% 270 248 92% 22 8% 219 88% 29 12%
0827 27 0 0.0% 22 80% 224 203 91% 21 9% 177 88% 26 12%
0828 188 0 0.0% 10 71% 113 96 85% 18 15% 80 83% 16 17%
0829 77 1 1.3% 13 72% 152 129 85% 24 15% 110 85% 19 15%
0830 98 3 3.1% 10 74% 101 87 87% 13 13% 74 85% 13 15%
0831 145 3 2.1% 10 71% 123 92 85% 31 15% 77 84% 15 16%
0832 186 1 0.5% 9 73% 101 86 86% 14 14% 74 85% 13 15%
0833 188 5 2.7% 9 71% 101 83 85% 18 15% 70 84% 13 16%
0834 121 1 0.8% 15 76% 192 163 88% 29 12% 141 86% 22 14%
0835 121 0 0.0% 20 78% 218 196 90% 22 10% 171 87% 25 13%
0836 83 0 0.0% 10 73% 100 89 89% 11 11% 74 82% 15 18%
0837 162 0 0.0% 14 68% 346 240 80% 106 20% 206 86% 34 14%
0839 77 0 0.0% 16 76% 195 172 88% 23 12% 148 86% 24 14%
0840 137 0 0.0% 17 77% 185 164 89% 21 11% 142 87% 22 13%
0841 101 1 1.0% 13 67% 187 129 82% 57 18% 105 82% 24 18%
0849 137 0 0.0% 17 77% 199 176 89% 23 11% 152 86% 24 14%
0851 176 2 1.1% 18 75% 189 167 88% 22 12% 142 85% 25 15%
0852 141 2 1.4% 19 76% 233 202 89% 31 11% 173 86% 29 14%
0853 2 0 0.0% 22 80% 172 165 95% 7 5% 139 85% 26 15%
0854 181 3 1.7% 9 69% 97 81 83% 16 17% 67 82% 14 18%
0855 187 3 1.6% 9 69% 91 76 84% 15 16% 62 82% 14 18%
0856 185 0 0.0% 12 73% 131 112 86% 18 14% 96 85% 17 15%
0857 187 2 1.1% 12 75% 130 114 88% 16 12% 98 86% 16 14%
0858 179 1 0.6% 10 68% 115 96 84% 19 16% 78 81% 18 19%
0872 30 0 0.0% 10 77% 99 88 90% 10 10% 75 86% 13 14%
0873 186 2 1.1% 12 75% 139 122 88% 17 12% 104 85% 18 15%
0874 186 2 1.1% 13 73% 165 135 86% 30 14% 115 85% 21 15%
0875 186 3 1.6% 17 72% 205 174 86% 31 14% 146 83% 28 17%
0876 187 0 0.0% 10 73% 108 93 86% 16 14% 79 85% 14 15%
0877 96 1 1.0% 23 74% 332 257 87% 75 13% 218 85% 39 15%
0878 38 0 0.0% 18 75% 206 185 90% 20 10% 155 83% 31 17%
0880 89 0 0.0% 10 75% 99 88 89% 11 11% 74 84% 14 16%
0881 165 0 0.0% 12 74% 122 106 87% 16 13% 90 85% 16 15%
0882 177 0 0.0% 12 79% 156 138 89% 18 11% 123 89% 15 11%
0893 105 4 3.8% 15 70% 220 188 86% 31 14% 154 82% 34 18%
0894 113 3 2.7% 13 72% 190 160 84% 31 16% 136 85% 24 15%
0953 137 1 0.7% 12 76% 146 129 88% 17 12% 111 86% 18 14%
0974 188 1 0.5% 9 69% 96 80 84% 16 16% 66 82% 14 18%
0975 167 1 0.6% 9 65% 98 79 81% 19 19% 64 81% 15 19%
0984 161 0 0.0% 10 68% 106 86 82% 20 18% 72 83% 14 17%
0986 178 78 43.8% 10 47% 102 74 71% 28 29% 53 64% 21 36%
1068 77 0 0.0% 9 75% 101 90 89% 12 11% 76 85% 14 15%
1074 179 1 0.6% 12 77% 147 129 88% 18 12% 113 87% 16 13%
1075 186 1 0.5% 13 76% 141 123 88% 17 12% 106 86% 17 14%
1076 177 1 0.6% 20 78% 234 211 90% 24 10% 184 87% 27 13%
1077 117 0 0.0% 19 74% 216 188 88% 28 12% 158 84% 30 16%
1078 187 1 0.5% 13 74% 148 130 87% 19 13% 110 85% 19 15%
1079 187 0 0.0% 14 74% 156 136 87% 20 13% 115 85% 21 15%
1086 184 0 0.0% 18 73% 197 173 88% 25 12% 143 83% 30 17%
1087 29 0 0.0% 27 75% 299 264 89% 34 11% 223 84% 42 16%
1088 157 3 1.9% 18 72% 193 171 89% 22 11% 140 80% 31 20%
1089 95 1 1.1% 20 70% 195 176 91% 19 9% 143 77% 34 23%
1090 184 2 1.1% 19 74% 231 188 88% 43 12% 158 84% 30 16%
1091 141 2 1.4% 22 74% 240 198 88% 42 12% 167 84% 31 16%
1092 183 1 0.5% 22 76% 255 220 89% 35 11% 189 86% 31 14%
1093 18 0 0.0% 25 76% 282 249 88% 33 12% 214 85% 35 15%
1094 182 1 0.5% 9 74% 119 89 86% 29 14% 77 86% 12 14%
1117 183 0 0.0% 8 72% 99 83 84% 16 16% 71 85% 12 15%
1118 183 0 0.0% 9 68% 104 84 81% 20 19% 70 83% 14 17%
1119 147 1 0.7% 10 68% 107 95 88% 12 12% 75 77% 19 23%
1120 175 23 13.1% 8 59% 78 59 76% 19 24% 46 77% 13 23%
1121 116 19 16.4% 10 55% 82 63 76% 19 24% 46 71% 17 29%
1122 171 18 10.5% 9 43% 55 38 79% 17 21% 22 55% 16 45%
1123 165 1 0.6% 10 75% 105 91 86% 15 14% 79 87% 12 13%
1124 84 0 0.0% 8 71% 100 84 84% 16 16% 71 84% 13 16%
1129 139 1 0.7% 16 74% 163 135 88% 28 12% 114 84% 21 16%
1130 105 2