The Aquarius Validation Data System (AVDS) obtains and process surface measurements from the data centers of several ocean observation programs (Argo GOSUD, TAO, …) as a means of delivering surface calibration data to the Aquarius data processing center. Liaisons are maintained with various observation programs in order to acquire near surface data on a daily basis. The data are quality controlled and edited if necessary and provided in a uniform data format.
The two primary data sources are:
TAO/TRITON Internet GUI
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/tao/data_deliv/
US GODAE – ARGO Float data
http://www.usgodae.org/argo/argo.html
The following data sources will be added at a later time:
Coriolis Global Ocean Profiles (including ARGO)
http://www.coriolis.eu.org/cdc/DataSelection/cdcDataSelections.asp
GOSUD ftp
ftp://ftp.ifremer.fr/ifremer/gosud
GOSUD Internet GUI
http://www.coriolis.eu.org/cdc/GosudSelection/cdcGosudSelections.asp
US GTSPP – Global Ocean Profiles
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/GTSPP/gtspp-home.html