In the past two decades, the Argo Program has collected, processed, and distributed over two million vertical profiles of temperature and salinity from the upper two kilometers of the global ocean. A similar number of subsurface velocity observations near 1,000 dbar have also been collected. This paper recounts the history of the global Argo Program, from its aspiration arising out of the World Ocean Circulation Experiment, to the development and implementation of its instrumentation and telecommunication systems, and the various technical problems encountered. We describe the Argo data system and its quality control procedures, and the gradual changes in the vertical resolution and spatial coverage of Argo data from 1999 to 2019. The accuracies of the float data have been assessed by comparison with high-quality shipboard measurements, and are concluded to be 0.002 • C for temperature, 2.4 dbar for pressure, and 0.01 PSS-78 for salinity, after delayed-mode adjustments. Finally, the challenges faced by the vision of an expanding Argo Program beyond 2020 are discussed.
International audienceDuring the first decade of the twenty-first century, more than 6000 Argo floats have been launched over the World Ocean, gathering temperature and salinity data from the upper 2000 m, at a 10-day or so sampling period. Meanwhile their deep displacements can be used to map the ocean circulation at their drifting depth (mostly around 1000 m). A comprehensive processing of the whole Argo dataset collected prior to 1 January 2010 has been performed to produce a world-wide dataset of deep displacements. This numerical atlas, named ANDRO, after a traditional dance of Brittany meaning a swirl, comprises some 600 000 deep displacements. These displacements, based on Argo or GPS surface locations only, have been fully checked and corrected for possible errors found in the public Argo data files (due to incorrect decoding or instrumental failure). Park pressures measured by the floats while drifting at depth are preserved in ANDRO (less than 2% of the park pressures are unknown): 63% of the float displacements are in the layer (900, 1100) dbar with a good (more or less uniform) degree of coverage of all the oceans, except around Antarctica (south of 60°S). Two deeper layers--(1400, 1600) and (1900, 2100) dbar--are also sampled (11% and 8% of the float displacements, respectively) but with poorer geographical coverage. Grounded cycles (i.e., if the float hits the sea bottom) are excluded. ANDRO is available online as an ASCII file
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