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Measurement · Physical Oceanography · dbar

Pressure

NERC P01 PRESPR01P06 units UPDB dbarkey pressure series pressure
689,275
values
18
flagged
i
18 of these 689,275 values (under 0.1 %) are flagged by their provider as questionable or bad. The Explorer, the climatology and its anomalies leave them out; do the same when you read the data yourself (cc_qual_ok_sql() in calcofi4r, qual_ok_sql() in calcofi4py).
9,677
sampling events
1993–2026
years
1
dataset
1–3,630 m
depth
Jan · Feb · Mar · Apr · May · Jun · Jul · Aug · Sep · Oct · Nov
seasons
What

The force per unit area exerted by the water column on a mobile sensor located in the water column.

How
CTD sensor

Sea-Bird CTD profiling pressure sensor

CTD FAQ circa 2020 on calcofi.org ↗

CalCOFI holds 689,275 values of it from 9,677 sampling events in one dataset, 1993–2026, from the surface to 3,630 m. At 200–500 m it has fallen 0.22 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 689,275 values · 9,677 sampling events · 1993–2026 · 1–3,630 m · 113 grid cells · 134 cruises
    series pressure · source column pressure · flag column pr_q 18 flagged

How it is measured

CTD Cast Files · CTD sensor
Sea-Bird CTD profiling pressure sensor

A strain-gauge pressure sensor on the CTD, corrected to read zero at sea level. (calcofi.org CTD FAQ circa 2020)

flag pr_q18 flagged
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: 3,237 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=%22pressure%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 … 6500 dbarobserved1.005 … 3688 dbarflagged18baselineclimatology ✓
details
bounds
The registry declares 0 … 6500 dbar for pressure; a value outside it is dropped at the ingest (drop_out_of_bounds()).
observed
CTD Cast Files pressure 1.005 · median 186.4 · 3688 dbar (5th–95th percentile 16.11–514.2)
flags
CTD Cast Files pressure pr_q on 18 of 689,275 rows: 8 18; qual_ok keeps 689,257. The codes are this dataset's own vocabulary, uninterpreted.
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.

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.