Complimentary aspects of Argo and Gliders

A question from the IOOS-OAR collaboration workshop yesterday concerned how Argo and Gliders are complimentary.

Below is a plot of the locations of the Argo profiles during the 2019 hurricane season compared to the tracks of the gliders during the same time period.

The Argo floats provide the broad spatial coverage over large areas of the ocean.  The gliders are concentrated in regions that have less or no Argo coverage, like the Gulf Stream, the Caribbean, and definitely on the continental shelves.   Each Argo float typically provides a profile once every 10 days. Gliders provide multiple profiles a day, and can be directed across strong currents.  Over 100,000 glider profiles were provided by the community’s glider fleet during the 2019 hurricane season.