glider-mission-tracker

name	glider-mission-tracker
description	Use when the user asks about underwater gliders — phrases like "active glider missions in …", "Slocum / Spray / Seaglider", "glider profiles near {location}", "glider data for {variable}", or any IOOS regional glider question. Encodes which collection holds which regional glider feed and how to filter live vs archived deployments.

Glider mission tracker

Underwater gliders are buoyancy-driven AUVs that dive in a sawtooth pattern collecting profiles for weeks-to-months at a time. AQUAVIEW exposes glider data through several IOOS-region-aligned collections.

Where gliders live in the catalog

Region / network	Collection	Notes
US national glider feed (multi-region)	IOOS	Aggregated across regional associations
US Mid-Atlantic	MARACOOS	Heavy Slocum activity off NJ/MD/VA shelf
US Pacific Northwest	NANOOS	NANOOS-ASSET glider deployments
US West Coast (CA / OR / WA)	CENCOOS, CALOOS	UCSD / Scripps Spray gliders + CENCOOS Slocums
US Northeast	NERACOOS	Gulf of Maine deployments
US Southeast / Caribbean	SECOORA, CARICOOS
Open ocean / global	OOI, OOI_GOLDCOPY	Ocean Observatories Initiative endurance arrays
US Spray glider archive	SPRAY	Scripps Spray glider program archive

Don't search all regional collections at once — pick one by user's region. Use bbox-from-region to get the bbox, then choose the matching IOOS RA.

See mission-types.md for Slocum / Spray / Seaglider differences.

Pattern: "active gliders in X"

For currently-deployed gliders:

search_datasets(
  collections=["MARACOOS"],   # adjust per region
  bbox=<bbox>,
  datetime="<7-days-ago>/<today>",
  limit=20
)

Items returned in the last 7 days are usually active deployments. Check properties.deployment_status if exposed.

Pattern: archived missions over a time range

search_datasets(
  collections=["IOOS"],
  bbox=<bbox>,
  datetime="2020-01-01/2024-12-31",
  q="glider",
  limit=50
)

The free-text q="glider" helps disambiguate from buoy / mooring data in the IOOS aggregate feed.

Pattern: variable-filtered glider data

"Find Slocum glider deployments off New Jersey with chlorophyll fluorescence."

search_datasets(
  collections=["MARACOOS"],
  bbox=[-75.0, 38.0, -73.0, 40.0],
  datetime="<start>/<end>",
  filter="properties->>'cube:variables'->>'chl_a'->>'mean' IS NOT NULL",
  filter_lang="cql2-text",
  limit=20
)

Common variables (per-mission)

Glider variables differ by sensor payload. Typical:

• temp, salinity, pressure — universal (CTD)
• chl_a (fluorescence) — common
• oxygen (DO sensor) — often
• cdom (colored dissolved organic matter), bb_700 (backscatter) — BGC-equipped only
• density — derived
• u_water, v_water — depth-averaged currents (Slocum derives from dead-reckoning vs GPS fix)

Glider data structure

Glider items in AQUAVIEW are typically organized at the deployment level — one item per multi-week deployment, with the entire deployment NetCDF as a single asset. To inspect a single profile:

1. get_item(id=<deployment_id>) to fetch the asset URL
2. Download the NetCDF (xarray.open_dataset(...))
3. The dataset has time/profile/depth dimensions; index by profile number

If the user wants per-profile data without downloading the whole deployment, fall back to ERDDAP-direct queries (mention it as a workflow option, not via AQUAVIEW).

Cross-reference patterns

• Glider + HF radar surface currents for an Eulerian-Lagrangian comparison: see hf-radar-currents
• Glider + Argo for shelf-to-deep handoff: glider on the shelf, Argo offshore
• Glider + satellite SST/chl for surface-to-subsurface comparison: see sst-and-ocean-color

Worked example

"Show me all active glider missions in the Mid-Atlantic Bight."

1. bbox = [-77.0, 35.0, -68.0, 41.5]   (from `bbox-from-region`)
2. search_datasets(
     collections=["MARACOOS"],
     bbox=bbox,
     datetime="<14-days-ago>/<today>",
     q="glider",
     limit=30
   )
3. For each item, summarize: deployment ID, lat/lon range, variables, days deployed