A shortcut to isolate In Situ TAC products from satellites products (the other observational source in Copernicus Marine Service) is by selecting the ‘product with depth level’ checkbox at the bottom of the left search menu. This way just In Situ TAC products will appeard along with MODEL products a no mixing with satellite-based observations will occur. By selecting both ‘product with depth level’ and any other option (i.e regional domain, parameter etc) you will always find In Situ TAC products at the bottom of your selection.
All Copernicus Marine Service in situ data products can be found and downloaded after registration via the Copernicus Marine Service catalogue. Such channel is advisable just for sporadic netCDF downloading because when operational, interaction with the web user interface is not practical. In this context though, the use of scripts for ftp file transference is is a much more advisable approach. The Copernicus Marine Service provides a Motu-Client that enables to extract and download data through a python command line (more here), although you may build your own code on top of In Situ TAC index files for that very same purpose (examples with python ftplib package can be found here).
In Situ TAC storages data in netCDFs, format used by up to 1300 institutions for creating, accessing and sharing array-oriented scientific data. Copernicus Marine Service list a number of tools users can use for visualization & manipulation of such files. Our contribution for spreading the word about how-to-handle netCDF format can be found in the material build for training sessions in form of presentations and several in-browser examples of netCDF processing in python language.
INSTAC is continuously working on enhancing the quality of the products delivered. We cannot guaranty that the INSTAC products are better than others but we guaranty that we provide the necessery efforts to reaching the objective to deliver in situ datasets of the best quality. Each product is regulary tested (format checker) and test results are reported to Mercator-Ocean. Product contents are regulary monitored and validated. Product Quality validation plan and Product Quality Validation reports are provided to Mercator Ocean (available on request)
The IN SITU TAC QC policy relies on international agreed QC procedures but there is a strong activity on continuously improve the INSTAC products.
For each product delivered by INSTAC a set of documents is provided ; the PUM –Product User Manual- which describes how to access the product. The QUID –Quality information Document – which describes how the product has been elaborated and consequently which QC as been applied or not. Both documents are available through the Copernicus Marine Service catalogue