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Measurement · Physical Oceanography · m

Bottle trip depth

NERC P01 ADEPZZ01P06 units ULAA mkey btl_depth series btl_depth
156,745
values
0
flagged
9,134
sampling events
1993–2026
years
1
dataset
1–3,510 m
depth
Jan · Feb · Mar · Apr · May · Jun · Jul · Aug · Sep · Oct · Nov
seasons
What

The distance of a sensor or sampling point below the sea surface

How
CTD sensor

Pressure-derived depth

CTD FAQ circa 2020 on calcofi.org ↗

CalCOFI holds 156,745 values of it from 9,134 sampling events in one dataset, 1993–2026, from the surface to 3,510 m. At 10–50 m it has fallen 0.64 per decade since 1993.R Pressure is how a CTD knows where it is, and depth is where the story is: off Southern California oxygen, nitrate and phosphate have changed at different rates in each layer.C

other ways to say why · 2
  • authored Every profile in the record is placed in the water column by its pressure, so a depth error moves a value into the wrong layer rather than losing it. needs a citation before it can be the pick
  • Wikipedia Pressure is the force applied perpendicular to the surface of an object per unit area over which that force is distributed. Gauge pressure is the pressure relative to the ambient pressure. Pressure · CC BY-SA 4.0 · rev. 1378601778

The measurement

Measured in
i

One row per series, one cell per year, darker with more values — the same strip the front door draws per dataset and a species page draws per taxon. Each row is one dataset's own measurement_type; the label is written once, in the title above.

  • CTD Cast Files 156,745 values · 9,134 sampling events · 1993–2026 · 1–3,510 m · 109 grid cells · 128 cruises
    series btl_depth · source column btl_depth no flag at this grain

How it is measured

CTD Cast Files · CTD sensor
Pressure-derived depth

the Niskin's trip depth from the CTD pressure record (calcofi.org CTD FAQ circa 2020)

no flag at this grain
CTD FAQ circa 2020 on calcofi.org ↗

Why it matters

The familiar scale
i

Bars are each series' 5th–95th percentile, the line its minimum to maximum, the ring its median; the marks are metadata/measurement_scale.csv's, each hovering to its own source.

The record’s own history
i

Deeper than the climatology reaches: 90 values at 1000–2000 m, 24 values at 2000+ m have no normal to depart from, because the release’s climatology stops at its deepest built bin. Carrying it to the bottom is one argument of build_climatology() and puts these bands on the page too.

The record

Ways in
i

Read from measurements.json of release v2026.10.14, written at release by calcofi4db::build_measurements_catalog() beside taxa.json. The catalog's index is /measurements/; the JSON-LD on this page is a schema.org/DefinedTerm in the NERC P01 term set with a PropertyValue per series.

ExplorerExplorer · a depth section vs normaldb-query
ERDDAP · CTD Cast FilesCalCOFI's own server, the CTD Cast Files table constrained to this series
https://erddap.calcofi.io/erddap/tabledap/calcofi_ctd-cast.html?&measurement_type=%22btl_depth%22

By depth
i

Values per depth band at the release grain, one thin bar per series. The bands are the record's own (0-10 … 2000+ m).

By month
i

Values per calendar month, one row per series: CalCOFI's quarterly cruises show as peaks in the months the ships sail.

Range & quality

bounds0 … 11,000 mobserved1 … 3510 mflagged0baselineclimatology ✓
details
bounds
The registry declares 0 … 11,000 m for btl_depth; a value outside it is dropped at the ingest (drop_out_of_bounds()).
observed
CTD Cast Files btl_depth 1 · median 99 · 3510 m (5th–95th percentile 3–497)
flags
CTD Cast Files btl_depth carries no quality code at the release grain; qual_ok keeps all 156,745.
baseline
A monthly climatology exists for this measurement (the release's climatology table: 1993–2013, dataset × station × the cruise's month × 10 m bin), so the Explorer can draw anomalies against it rather than values.

Related measurements
i

The same quantity from another platform or another kind of sample, each its own page and never merged into this one: a dataset's own bottle samples would count that dataset twice, an underway intake is not a cast, and a replicate is not a mean. The reason is the record's (related[].why).

  • Reported depth from pressure (pre-QC) r_depth · Hydrographic Bottle · 1949–2021 · 895,370 values · P01 ADEPZZ01 the same quantity from the CTD files' own bottle samples — plausibly the same physical bottles, so merging them would count the bottle dataset twice

Cite

Cite the release; each dataset's own citation, licence and DOI are on its page — CTD Cast Files. The Explorer's Share → Cite writes it for the view you make.