ADCP - Acoustic Doppler Current Profiles. An instrument that measures ocean currents based on doppler shifts in backscattered acoustic signals

AIRT - Air temperature, measured by the TAO buoys three meters above the sea surface.

Anomaly - Difference between data and a climatalogy.

BPor SLP- Atmospheric barometric pressure measured at three m above the ocean surface

Climatology - Average conditions based on historical data. Seasonal climatologies represent best estimate of average conditions for each month (January through December).

Current - Horizontal velocity of ocean flow.

Data averaging intervals - Instruments sample the environment at various time intervals or during various time intervals, such as one hour, or 1 day (see TAO Data Sampling Regimes). Later, the data are averaged over a longer time period, such as five days or a month.

• Monthly - Average of daily data collected during each month.
• 5-Day - Average of daily data collected during consecutive five day intervals, and subsequently smoothed with a 1-2-1 filter.
• Daily - Average of highest resolution data collected each day.

DYN - Dynamic Height. This is a measure of the elevation of the sea level , calculated by integrating the specific volume anomaly of the sea water between the sea surface and 500 m depth.

D(z) - Subsurface density (sigma-theta).

EQ or EQUA identifies data at the Equator.

FD Cur - Ocean currents measured at fixed depths

Heat - Heat content of the upper layers of the ocean, from the surface to 300 meters.

Isotherms - Surfaces of constant temperature within the ocean, or lines of constant temperature on a time-depth plot, a depth-longitude plot, or a latitude depth plot

LWR or LW Rad - Incoming longwave radiation measured at three m above the ocean surface

Mean - Time averaged data.

Ocean Derived - Data computed from ocean sensor data, such as heat content, dynamic height, 20°C isotherm depth, and transports.

RH - Relative Humidity, measured by the TAO buoys three meters above the sea surface.

Sampling - Temporal and spatial resolution of data.

Sea T(z) - Subsurface sea temperatures.

Sigma-Theta - Conductivity and temperature are first used to compute salinity, which is then combined with potential temperature to compute the potential density anomaly (sigma-theta) defined as

Transport - Volume of ocean water moving through an imaginary surface per second. Often computed as a transport per unit width from a single buoy by integrating the ocean currents over a range of depth in the upper ocean. Transport units are Sverdrup ( 1 Sverdrup= 10 m/s)

TZ-AVE - Depth Averaged Temperature, measured by the TAO buoys from the surface to 300m depth.

T1, T2, ...., T10 - Subsurface temperatures, measured by the TAO buoys. Standard instrument depths for ATLAS sites are listed below:

UWND - TAO buoys measure the wind speed and direction four meters above the sea surface. UWND is the East-West component, also referred to as the U or zonal component of the wind. If it is positive, the East-West component of the wind is blowing towards the East. If it is negative, this component is blowing towards the West.

VWND - TAO buoys measure the wind speed and direction four meters above the sea surface. VWND is the North-South component of the wind, also referred to as the V or meridional component of the wind. If it is positive, the North-South component of the wind is blowing towards the North. If it is negative, this component is blowing towards the South.

Wind - Vectors showing the speed and direction of winds at four meters above the sea surface, measured by the TAO buoys. The arrow head shows the direction the wind is blowing towards, and the length of the vector indicates the strength of the wind speed.

Wnd Vec - Wind vectors (see "wind", above).

WSPD - Scalar wind speed computed from hourly or daily data using the relation wspd = sqrt(uwnd + vwnd).

WDIR - Wind Direction in degrees clockwise from North computed from hourly or daily data using the relation wdir = (180 / 3.14) * arctan(uwnd / vwnd)