The Expendable Bathythermograph (XBT) has been used by oceanographers for many years to obtain information on the temperature structure of the ocean to depths of up to 2000 meters. The use of XBT's to measure the ocean's subsurface has significantly increased over the past decade. NOAA is actively participating in an international effort to increase the number of subsurface temperature observations in support of global oceanographic and climate studies. NOAA's XBT program (SEAS) currently supports about eighty voluntary observing ships (VOS). Observations from these vessels are collected and coded using the WMO bathy report format (JJYY) and transmitted via the GOES and INMARSAT C satellites. SEAS vessels are responsible for more than 14,000 XBT observations each year.

How to Access Program:

To begin an XBT observation execute the sippican software. The module that is executed is the module selected in the XBT Setup path. Execute the program by selecting the 'SEAS'|'XBT'|'Observation' from the AMVER SEAS main menu or by selecting button from the tool bar.

In order to Transmit the Binary XBT observation file. Select 'Create Binary File' from the main menu. This will open up a dialog box with the most recently created XBT data file (trace) selected. Select 'Save' to save the desired trace for binary transmission. An XBT Meta Data dialog will come up next. The user must select the correct information that will be appended to the binary XBT data file.

NOAA XBT Page - http://seas.amverseas.noaa.gov/seas/xbt.html