Copernicus Global In-situ Observations of Ocean Currents - Drifter

COPERNICUS/MARINE/INSITU_MULTI_4KM/DRIFTER
Dataset Provider
Earth Engine Snippet
ee.FeatureCollection.loadBigQueryTable('earth-engine-public-data.insitu_nrt_currents.drifter_latest')
Tags
copernicus marine ocean oceans
currents

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.

Regarding the production of global ocean products like the present one, activities among partners are organized according to the expertise and background in data management for operational oceanography. Drifter data in this collection come from two main sources: near-surface velocity measurements (15 m depth) from the French project Coriolis, part of the DBCP's Global Drifter Program, and drifter data retrieved from the OGS Mediterranean drifter dataset. The latter includes raw data from various research institutions and international data centers, processed using techniques described in Menna et al. (2017, 2018). The drifters have varying drogue depths, mostly between 0 and 15 m, but ranging from 0 to 300 m.

BigQuery Table Schema

Table Schema

Name Type Description
TIME DATETIME

datetime of the observation
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.
DEPTH DOUBLE

Number of Depth levels
DEPH DOUBLE

Depth of the observation. (m)
DEPH_QC INT

Quality control flag for DEPH.

  • 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.
TEMP DOUBLE

Temperature 20-30 cm beneath the sea surface. (Degrees Celsius)
TEMP_QC INT

Quality control flag for TEMP.

  • 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 drogue depth from the drifter position (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 drogue depth from the drifter position (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.
WSTN_MODEL DOUBLE

North component of the 6-hour integrated wind stress from ECMWF model interpolated at the drifter's position (N/m^2)
WSTN_MODEL_QC DOUBLE

Quality control flag for WSTN_MODEL.

  • 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.
WSTE_MODEL DOUBLE

East component of the 6-hour integrated wind stress from ECMWF model interpolated at the drifter's position (N/m^2)
WSTE_MODEL_QC INT

Quality control flag for WSTE_MODEL.

  • 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.
WSPN_MODEL DOUBLE

South-North 6-hour integrated 10-m wind component from ECMWF model interpolated at the drifter's position (m/s)
WSPN_MODEL_QC INT

Quality control flag for WSPN_MODEL.

  • 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.
WSPE_MODEL DOUBLE

West-East 6-hour integrated 10-m wind component from ECMWF model interpolated at the drifter's position (m/s)
WSPE_MODEL_QC INT

Quality control flag for WSPE_MODEL.

  • 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_WS DOUBLE

West-East wind slippage correction (m/s)
EWCT_WS_QC INT

Quality control flag for EWCT_WS.

  • 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_WS DOUBLE

South-North wind slippage correction (m/s)
NSCT_WS_QC DOUBLE

Quality control flag for NSCT_WS.

  • 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.
WS_TYPE_OF_PROCESSING INT

Wind slippage correction processing method (Dimensionless)

  • 0: Optimal mode, it is considered that the drifter trajectory is longer than 30 days
  • 1: Mean, the first/last days of the trajectory are completed using the mean value over the nearest 7 days.
  • 2: Undefined for drifters with trajectories shorter than 30 days.
PLATFORM_CODE STRING

Platform code relative to each measurement
CURRENT_TEST STRING

Tests of drogue loss results. It contains the 3 flags value for the 3 tests in a float format [SAW]

  • [S] submersion test
  • [A] acceleration not done
  • [W] wind-currents correlation

It's a three-character string where each character is one of the following digits:

  • 0: Drogue probably missing
  • 1: Test not performed or not relevant (case for some MO_TS_DC platforms)
  • 2: Weak probability of drogue presence
  • 3: Strong probability of drogue presence
CURRENT_TEST_QC INT

Quality control flag for CURRENT_TEST.

  • 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.
DC_REFERENCE STRING

Reference to the data center.
POSITION_QC INT

Quality control flag for the 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.
TRAJECTORY STRING

Trajectory identifier
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.

Explore with Earth Engine

Code Editor (JavaScript)

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

var temps = dataset.select('TEMP');

var tempVis = {
  min: 18,
  max: 25,
  palette: ['d7191c', 'fdae61', 'ffffbf', 'abd9e9', '2c7bb6'],
};

// Create an empty image and paint the features onto it, coloring by 'TEMP'.
var image = ee.Image().float().paint({
  featureCollection: temps,
  color: 'TEMP',
  width: 8 // Point size
});

Map.setCenter(-100.5, 30.2, 3);
Map.addLayer(image, tempVis, 'Global INSITU Drifter TEMP');
Open in Code Editor
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/DRIFTER, copernicus,marine,ocean,oceans
2025-03-28T00:00:00Z
-90 -180 90 180
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