Copernicus Global In-situ Observations of Ocean Currents - Argo

Dataset Provider

Copernicus

Earth Engine Snippet

ee.FeatureCollection.loadBigQueryTable('earth-engine-public-data.insitu_nrt_currents.argo_latest')

Tags

copernicus currents insitu marine ocean oceans

Description

The In Situ TAC is a distributed centre organized around 7 oceanographic regions: the global ocean and the 6 EUROGOOS regional alliances. It involves 14 partners from 11 countries in Europe. It doesn't deploy any observing system and relies on data, exclusively funded by other sources than Copernicus Marine Service.

This dataset is derived from the original trajectory data from Argo GDAC (Global Data Assembly Center). In 2020, the GDAC distributes data from more than 15,000 Argo floats. Deep ocean current is calculated from floats drift at parking depth, surface current is calculated from float surface drift.

For more details refer to this user manual

BigQuery Table Schema

Table Schema

Name	Type	Description
TIME	DATETIME	Datetime of the observation
DEPTH	DOUBLE	Number of depth levels
LATITUDE	DOUBLE	Latitude of the observation
LONGITUDE	DOUBLE	Longitude of the observation
PRES	DOUBLE	Representative pressure of the current observation. Can be 0 or parking depth pressure (decibar).
TRAJECTORY	STRING	Trajectory identifier
PRES_QC	INT	Quality control flag for PRES. 0: No QC was performed 1: good 2: probably good 3: Bad data that are potentially correctable 4: Bad data 5: value changed 6: Not used 7: nominal 8: interpolated 9: Missing value Note that a valid value for the corresponding variable has a QC bit equal to 1, 2, 5, 7, or 8.
EWCT	DOUBLE	West-East sea water velocity at the representative pressure (m/s)
EWCT_QC	INT	Quality control flag for EWCT. 0: No QC was performed 1: good 2: probably good 3: Bad data that are potentially correctable 4: Bad data 5: value changed 6: Not used 7: nominal 8: interpolated 9: Missing value Note that a valid value for the corresponding variable has a QC bit equal to 1, 2, 5, 7, or 8.
NSCT	DOUBLE	South-North sea water velocity at the representative pressure (m/s)
NSCT_QC	INT	Quality control flag for NSCT. 0: No QC was performed 1: good 2: probably good 3: Bad data that are potentially correctable 4: Bad data 5: value changed 6: Not used 7: nominal 8: interpolated 9: Missing value Note that a valid value for the corresponding variable has a QC bit equal to 1, 2, 5, 7, or 8.
TIME_QC	INT	Quality control flag for TIME. 0: No QC was performed 1: good 2: probably good 3: Bad data that are potentially correctable 4: Bad data 5: value changed 6: Not used 7: nominal 8: interpolated 9: Missing value Note that a valid value for the corresponding variable has a QC bit equal to 1, 2, 5, 7, or 8.
POSITION_QC	INT	Quality control flag for POSITION. 0: No QC was performed 1: good 2: probably good 3: Bad data that are potentially correctable 4: Bad data 5: value changed 6: Not used 7: nominal 8: interpolated 9: Missing value Note that a valid value for the corresponding variable has a QC bit equal to 1, 2, 5, 7, or 8.
CYCLE_NUMBER	DOUBLE	Cycle number of the Argo float
GROUNDED	STRING	Indicates the best estimate of whether the float touched the ground for that cycle. The conventions are described below: Y: Yes, the float touched the ground B: Yes, the float touched the ground after bathymetry check with an outside database N: No, the float did not touch the ground S: Float is known to be drifting at a shallower depth than originally programmed U: Unknown
DURATION	DOUBLE	Duration of measurement
geometry	GEOMETRY	Geographic location of the observation

Terms of Use

Terms of Use

The data is provided free of charge by the Copernicus Marine Service. Users must acknowledge the Copernicus Marine Service as the data source when using the data. More details on the terms of use can be found on the Copernicus Marine Service website.

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Code Editor (JavaScript)

var dataset = ee.FeatureCollection.loadBigQueryTable("earth-engine-public-data.insitu_nrt_currents.argo_latest")
                  .filter(ee.Filter.date('2025-04-01', '2025-05-01'));

dataset = dataset.map(function(f) {
  var val = ee.Number(f.get('EWCT')).float();
  return f.buffer(8000) // 8km radius circles
          .set('EWCT', val);
});


var image = dataset.reduceToImage({
  properties: ['EWCT'],
  reducer: ee.Reducer.first()
});

var visParams = {
  min: -0.5,
  max: 0.5,
  palette: ['a50026', 'd73027', '333333', '4575b4', '313695'],
};

Map.setCenter(-100.5, 30.2, 3);
Map.addLayer(image, visParams, 'Global INSITU Argo EWCT');

Open in Code Editor

Copernicus Global In-situ Observations of Ocean Currents - Argo

The In Situ TAC is a distributed centre organized around 7 oceanographic regions: the global ocean and the 6 EUROGOOS regional alliances. It involves 14 partners from 11 countries in Europe. It doesn't deploy any observing system and relies on data, exclusively funded by other sources than Copernicus Marine Service. …

COPERNICUS/MARINE/INSITU_MULTI_4KM/ARGO, copernicus,currents,insitu,marine,ocean,oceans

2025-03-28T00:00:00Z

-90 -180 90 180

Google Earth Engine

https://developers.google.com/earth-engine/datasets