CalCOFI Zooplankton Data  1951 - 1998

1:  Data
The CalCOFI zooplankton biomass database is maintained by the National Marine Fisheries Service, La Jolla. The Scripps Institution of Oceanography zooplankton collection data are also available online and includes CalCOFI samples. The data file consists of:

Cruise CalCOFI cruise number, consisting of the year and month of the cruise Line  number of the CalCOFI line were the sample was taken Station   number of the CalCOFI station were the sample was taken Lat  the latitude (north), decimal form Long  the longitude (west), decimal form Year year the sample was taken Month month the sample was taken Day day the sample was taken Date date sample was taken (mm/dd/yy 0:00:00) Hour hour the sample was taken Temp water temperature (Celsius) at 10 m at the time of sampling Zoo mesozooplankton biomass as displacement volume (ml) per 1000 m3 Eggs total fish eggs number per 10m2 to a nominal depth of 140 m until 1966 or to 210m since 1967 LogZoo  Log10 of Zoo LogEggs  Log10 of Eggs

Zooplankton were collected from 1951 until 1978 by oblique net tows (1 m diameter, 5 m long, 500 um mesh-size nets).  After 1978 a Bongo net, consisting of two side by side 0.71 m diameter 505 um mesh nets, was used.  From 1951 until 1969 tows were made between the surface and a depth of 140 m.  After 1969 tows were made between the surface and a depth of 210 m.  Fish eggs were enumerated from the zooplankton tows. These procedures are summarized in greater detail in Kramer et al. (1972).

2:   Data Analysis
The objective of this analysis is to present climatologies of zooplankton volume for the California Current System as covered by the CalCOFI program.   The emphasis is on the standard CalCOFI grid which was adopted in 19xx.  Data coverage for other areas has been sparse during the last 25 years.  Distributions of zooplankton volume for these other areas for the period 1951 - 1982 have been extensively described by Chelton et al. (1982) and Roesler and Chelton (1987).  For data analysis we used log-normalized zooplankton displacement units and assumed that these were normally distributed.    When possible, climatologies were calculated for the 1951 - 1998, the 1951 - 1985 and the 1986 - 1998 time periods.

3:   Definition  of Areas and Subareas

4:   Zooplankton  Volume:  Areal Distributions

5:   Zooplankton  Volume:  Time Series

6:   Zooplankton  Volume:  Seasonal Cycles 

7:   References

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