argodata: An R interface to oceanographic data from the International Argo Program

Abstract

This paper describes argodata, an R package that makes it easier to work with data acquired in the International Argo Program, which provides over two decades of oceanographic measurements from around the world. Although Argo data are publicly available in NetCDF format and several software packages are available to assist in locating and downloading relevant Argo data, the multidimensional arrays used can be difficult to understand for non-oceanographers, particularly for the expanding arrays of biogeochemical variables measured by Argo floats. Given the increasing use of Argo data in other disciplines, we built a minimal interface to the data set that uses the data frame as the primary data structure. This approach allows users to leverage the rich ecosystem of R packages that manipulate data frames (e.g., the tidyverse) and associated instructional resources.

Type
Publication
Journal of Open Source Software