TY - JOUR T1 - The CORA 5.2 dataset for global in situ temperature and salinity measurements: data description and validation A1 - Szekely,Tanguy A1 - Gourrion,Jerome A1 - Pouliquen,Sylvie A1 - Reverdin,Gilles AD - Societe Coopérative OceanScope, 115 rue Claude Chape, 29290, Plouzané, Brest, France AD - IFREMER, BP 70, Plouzané, 29280, France AD - Sorbonne-Université, CNRS/IRD/MNHN (LOCEAN), Paris, France UR - https://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00595/70726/ DO - 10.5194/os-15-1601-2019 N2 - We present the Copernicus in situ ocean dataset of temperature and salinity (version 5.2). Ocean subsurface sampling varied widely from 1950 to 2017 as a result of changes in instrument technology and the development of in situ observational networks (in particular, tropical moorings for the Argo program). Thus, global ocean temperature data coverage on an annual basis grew from 10 % in 1950 (30 % for the North Atlantic basin) to 25 % in 2000 (60 % for the North Atlantic basin) and reached a plateau exceeding 80 % (95 % for the North Atlantic Ocean) after the deployment of the Argo program. The average depth reached by the profiles also increased from 1950 to 2017. The validation framework is presented, and an objective analysis-based method is developed to assess the quality of the dataset validation process. Objective analyses (OAs) of the ocean variability are calculated without taking into account the data quality flags (raw dataset OA), with the near-real-time quality flags (NRT dataset OA), and with the delayed-time-mode quality flags (CORA dataset OA). The comparison of the objective analysis variability shows that the near-real-time dataset managed to detect and to flag most of the large measurement errors, reducing the analysis error bar compared to the raw dataset error bar. It also shows that the ocean variability of the delayed-time-mode validated dataset is almost exempt from random-error-induced variability. Y1 - 2019/12 PB - Copernicus GmbH JF - Ocean Science SN - 1812-0784 VL - 15 IS - 6 SP - 1601 EP - 1614 ID - 70726 ER -