Measurement · Physical Oceanography · PSS-78 · one key across 2 datasets

Salinity

Salinity - Practical Salinity Scale 1978 (QC'd)

NERC P01 PSLTZZ01P06 units PSUX PSS-78key salinity series salinity · salinity_ave_corr

1,521,041
values: 1,825
flagged: 44,142
sampling events: 1949–2025
years: 2
datasets: 0–5,351 m
depth: every month
seasons

Heads-up 1,825 of these 1,521,041 values (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). The salinity_ave_corr series from CTD Cast Files carries no flag at this grain, so its values cannot be screened this way.

Measured in

Hydrographic Bottle 848,015 values · 34,868 sampling events · 1949–2021 · 0–5,351 m · 213 grid cells · 650 cruises

series salinity · source column salnty · flag column s_qual 1,825 flagged · 0.2 %
CTD Cast Files 673,026 values · 9,274 sampling events · 1993–2025 · 1–3,630 m · 97 grid cells · 129 cruises

series salinity_ave_corr · source column salt_ave_corr · PSU sensor mean no flag at this grain
Average salinity corrected

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.

By depth

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

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

Range & quality

bounds: The registry declares 0 … 45 PSS-78 for salinity · salinity_ave_corr; a value outside it is dropped at the ingest (drop_out_of_bounds()).
observed: Hydrographic Bottle salinity 9.501 · median 33.86 · 37.03 PSS-78 (5th–95th percentile 33.11–34.51)
CTD Cast Files salinity_ave_corr 9.953 · median 33.98 · 39.19 PSU (5th–95th percentile 33.08–34.29)
flags: Hydrographic Bottle salinity s_qual on 38,259 of 848,015 rows: 10 2 · 100 3 · 101 5 · 102 2 · 103 4 · 104 1 · 105 4 · 106 6 · 108 4 · 109 2 · 11 1 · 110 2 · 112 4 · 113 1 · 114 5 · 115 5 · 116 2 · 117 1 · 118 1 · 119 6 · 12 3 · 120 3 · 121 5 · 122 2 · 123 5 · 124 2 · 125 4 · 126 2 · 127 2 · 128 1 · 129 6 · 13 10 · 130 6 · 131 3 · 132 2 · 133 1 · 134 7 · 135 2 · 136 3 · 137 2 · 138 2 · 139 8 · 14 7 · 140 5 · 141 3 · 142 2 · 143 1 · 144 5 · 145 3 · 146 1 · 147 3 · 148 4 · 149 3 · 15 7 · 150 2 · 151 2 · 152 5 · 153 2 · 154 3 · 155 1 · 156 2 · 157 5 · 158 1 · 159 1 · 16 11 · 162 2 · 163 3 · 164 2 · 165 2 · 166 2 · 167 1 · 169 4 · 17 11 · 170 1 · 171 1 · 172 1 · 175 2 · 176 2 · 177 2 · 178 1 · 179 3 · 18 6 · 180 1 · 181 1 · 182 1 · 183 1 · 185 1 · 186 3 · 188 2 · 189 1 · 19 3 · 190 1 · 191 3 · 193 2 · 194 1 · 195 2 · 198 3 · 20 8 · 201 2 · 202 1 · 203 1 · 204 1 · 205 1 · 21 8 · 211 2 · 212 2 · 213 1 · 214 4 · 215 2 · 216 2 · 217 1 · 218 2 · 219 4 · 22 5 · 220 4 · 221 2 · 224 2 · 225 5 · 228 2 · 23 7 · 230 3 · 231 2 · 232 1 · 233 3 · 235 4 · 236 4 · 238 1 · 239 2 · 24 8 · 240 1 · 241 3 · 242 1 · 243 1 · 244 2 · 245 2 · 246 1 · 247 2 · 248 1 · 249 4 · 25 4 · 250 3 · 251 2 · 252 2 · 253 2 · 254 6 · 255 2 · 256 6 · 257 7 · 258 14 · 259 11 · 26 2 · 260 10 · 261 13 · 262 24 · 263 25 · 264 22 · 265 21 · 266 8 · 267 8 · 268 9 · 269 3 · 27 3 · 270 5 · 271 9 · 272 3 · 273 2 · 275 2 · 276 1 · 278 2 · 28 8 · 281 1 · 282 1 · 283 4 · 284 1 · 285 1 · 287 2 · 29 5 · 290 2 · 291 1 · 298 2 · 30 3 · 307 2 · 31 4 · 311 1 · 312 2 · 32 4 · 323 1 · 33 3 · 34 3 · 344 1 · 35 4 · 36 5 · 37 9 · 38 1 · 39 4 · 4 1 · 40 5 · 42 3 · 43 5 · 44 2 · 45 4 · 46 5 · 47 2 · 48 2 · 49 4 · 5 1 · 50 2 · 51 2 · 52 1 · 53 4 · 54 4 · 55 3 · 56 3 · 58 1 · 59 2 · 6 35,552 · 60 3 · 61 3 · 62 2 · 63 2 · 64 2 · 65 3 · 66 4 · 67 4 · 68 7 · 69 5 · 71 5 · 72 2 · 74 3 · 75 4 · 76 5 · 79 3 · 8 1,825 · 80 1 · 81 1 · 83 3 · 84 4 · 85 1 · 86 5 · 87 4 · 88 2 · 89 1 · 90 3 · 91 4 · 92 5 · 93 2 · 94 5 · 95 3 · 96 5 · 97 1 · 98 2 · 99 3; qual_ok keeps 846,190. The codes are this dataset's own vocabulary, uninterpreted.
CTD Cast Files salinity_ave_corr carries no quality code at the release grain; qual_ok keeps all 673,026.
baseline: A monthly climatology exists for this measurement (the release's climatology table: 1993–2013, dataset × grid cell × calendar month × 10 m bin), so the Explorer can draw anomalies against it rather than values.

Related measurements

Bottle salinity salinity_btl · CTD Cast Files · 1993–2025 · 150,917 values · P01 PSLTZZ01 the same quantity from the CTD files' own bottle samples — plausibly the same physical bottles, so merging them would count the bottle dataset twice
Practical salinity (PSS-78) salinity_pss78 · Carbonate Chemistry / DIC · 1983–2021 · 908 values · P01 PSLTZZ01 the same casts logged by another instrument on the same station

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).

Ways in

Explorermaps, sections and time series of this measurement — opens prefilled
https://calcofi.io/explore/?var=salinity
Explorer · a depth section vs normalthe newest cruise's section against the climatology baseline
https://calcofi.io/explore/?lens=section&var=salinity&anom=1
db-querySQL in your browser — the shell opens with this query
https://calcofi.io/db-query/?sql=SELECT+%2A+FROM+__TBL%3Aobs_env__+WHERE+measurement_type+IN+%28%27salinity%27%2C+%27salinity_ave_corr%27%29+LIMIT+100%3B
ERDDAP · Hydrographic BottleCalCOFI's own server, the Hydrographic Bottle table constrained to this series
https://erddap.calcofi.io/erddap/tabledap/calcofi_bottle.html?&measurement_type=%22salinity%22
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=%22salinity_ave_corr%22

Parquetobs_env is partitioned by measurement_type in the content-addressed store — resolved through the release catalog, never a path built by hand

SELECT * FROM read_json('…/v2026.09.10/catalog.json')
-- objects[] WHERE table = 'obs_env'
--   AND partition_value = 'salinity'
--                    | 'salinity_ave_corr'

library(calcofi4r)
con <- cc_get_db()                      # the promoted release
tbl(con, "obs_env") |> filter(measurement_type %in% c("salinity", "salinity_ave_corr"))

Python

import calcofi4py as cc
con = cc.cc_get_db()
con.sql("SELECT * FROM obs_env WHERE measurement_type IN ('salinity', 'salinity_ave_corr')").df()

This page as data

JSONthis measurement's entry of the release record, verbatim
https://calcofi.io/measurements/salinity.json

Read from measurements.json of release v2026.09.10, 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.

Cite

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