CORA dataset


CORA is a global oceanographic temperature and salinity dataset produced and maintained by the French institute IFREMER. Most of those data are real-time data coming from different types of platforms such as research vessels, profilers, underwater gliders, drifting buoys, moored buoys, sea mammals and ships of opportunity.

Description

This in-situ dataset produced by the French institute Ifremer in the framework of the European project MyOcean and French project CORIOLIS is a picture of the content of the operational oceanographic database CORIOLIS. This database is the main tool of Coriolis project which is a global data assembly center of in situ data: such as centre of Monterey in California.
The latest version of CORA product is v5.2, it covers the years 1950 up to 2024 and has been released in May 2024. Observations are profiles distributed on measured levels and organized by dates of measurement and type of platform.
Main users of CORA dataset are ocean modelers who needs to constraint and initialize their model. CORA is free of access and can be download via Copernicus Marine Service https://data.marine.copernicus.eu/product/INSITU_GLO_PHY_TS_DISCRETE_MY_013_001/description in netCDF file format. The main different of CORA dataset with other available datasets is that CORA provides data at depth levels where measurements were made rather than at standard levels such as in World Ocean Atlas or . In addition data in CORA are retrieved from Coriolis database where each profile is visually checked by specialist operators if suspicious.

Validation procedure

Validation in database

Validation post extraction

  • second duplicate observation check
  • refined climatological test
  • XBT depth correction
  • second objective analysis with tuned parameters: anomalies are visualized
  • ARGO special diagnostics

Data sources

The CORA dataset is designed for operational oceanography, so most global real time monitoring networks are plugged into this database. The data sources are the following: