Conductivity-Temperature-Depth (CTD) profile data from transects of Whales Tail Marsh tidal creeks, South San Francisco Bay, California during 2021 and 2022

Conductivity, salinity, optical backscatter and pressure (CTD) data were collected with an RBRmaestro multi-channel logger at site TCE (Tidal Creek East) intermittently over the period from June 17,2021 to July 28, 2021. The instrument was hand lowered from a kayak at various locations across the tidal creek after ADCP transect data collection was completed. Data from water samples collected during this activity have been previously published. See cross reference.

Conductivity, salinity, optical backscatter and pressure (CTD) data were collected with an RBRmaestro multi-channel logger on tidal creek site TCM (Tidal Creek Main channel) on December 3-4,2021 and on tidal creek site TCE on December 6-7, 2021. The instrument was hand lowered from a kayak at various locations across the tidal creek after ADCP transect data collection was completed. Data from water samples collected during this activity have been previously published. See cross reference.

Conductivity, salinity, optical backscatter, and pressure (CTD) data were collected with an RBRmaestro multi-channel logger at site TCM intermittently over the period from January 3-4,2022. The instrument was hand lowered from a kayak at various locations across the tidal creek after ADCP transect data collection was completed. Data from water samples collected during this activity have been previously published. See cross reference.

Data were collected in a single file over multiple days for each data collection interval. Data not part of this study were removed during post-processing. The raw data files downloaded from the CTD were processed and converted to netCDF using the stglib python library, a package of code to process data consistent with procedures of the USGS Coastal/Marine Hazards and Resources Program. In stglib, attributes conforming to Climate and Forecast (CF) Conventions version 1.8 were added. All times are in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). Corrected pressure data (P_1ac) were calculated by finding an offset with local atmospheric pressure readings when the pressure sensor was reading in air just prior to deployment. Pressure data were corrected using the offset and a time-series of local atmospheric pressure from NOAA station 9414523 Redwood City, CA, over the course of the deployment to remove the atmospheric contribution to the deployed pressure data. The resulting corrected pressure variable is the pressure due to seawater (standard_name "sea_water_pressure_due_to_seawater" in netCDF files).

Data quality assurance and quality control (QAQC) was performed by inspecting all variables and replacing spurious values with NaN. Details of which portions of data were flagged and replaced are available in the metadata in each netCDF file and information about the individual QAQC trimming functions are available in the stglib documentation (https://stglib.readthedocs.io/en/latest/) in the "Instrument configuration file" section. Files are named with a convention that uses a multi-element alphanumeric code delimited by underscores. The first element for this dataset represents location and time of year (e.g. WTS21 or WTW21 for Whales Tail Summer 2021 or Winter 2021); the second element (e.g. CTDaprof) indicates the type of data (CTD), 'a' or 'b' indicating the first or second file of the time of year where more than one datafile was collected, and the type of data acquisition (e.g. prof indicates profiling rather than data collected at a fixed point); the suffix '-cal' indicates the data has been corrected for observed atmospheric pressure variations.