Assessment of quality and reliability of measurements with XBT Sippican T5 and T5/20

The T5 expendable bathythermographs reach the greatest depth within the current XBT family. Since the early 1970s, in several areas they have been providing a significant part of available temperature profiles below 1000 m and therefore represent an important resource for ocean climate study. In this paper we present new results from laboratory tests of Sippican T5 and T5/20 probes and analyses of more than 350 XBT-CTD matched pairs from our own field trials and the World Ocean Database (WOD), and we propose an improved fall rate equation (coefficients: A = 6.720 +/- 0.025 m s(-1), B = 0.001 60 +/- 0.000 15 m s(-2), Offset = 1.00 +/- 0.65 m). Possible influences of probe physical characteristics and initial launch conditions on the probe motion have also been investigated with launching height and probe weight being identified as important factors. Analyses also confirm that fall speed and pure temperature error increase with water temperature, as previously reported for other XBT types. The uncertainties in depth and temperature measurements are then calculated. Finally, a new correction for a global T5 dataset is proposed, with an update of the currently available schemes.