In the past two decades, the Argo Program has collected, processed, and distributed over two million vertical profiles of temperature and salinity from the upper two kilometers of the global ocean. A similar number of subsurface velocity observations near 1,000 dbar have also been collected. This paper recounts the history of the global Argo Program, from its aspiration arising out of the World Ocean Circulation Experiment, to the development and implementation of its instrumentation and telecommunication systems, and the various technical problems encountered. We describe the Argo data system and its quality control procedures, and the gradual changes in the vertical resolution and spatial coverage of Argo data from 1999 to 2019. The accuracies of the float data have been assessed by comparison with high-quality shipboard measurements, and are concluded to be 0.002°C for temperature, 2.4 dbar for pressure, and 0.01 PSS-78 for salinity, after delayed-mode adjustments. Finally, the challenges faced by the vision of an expanding Argo Program beyond 2020 are discussed.

中文翻译：

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Argo 数据 1999-2019：来自全球剖面浮标阵列的 200 万个温度-盐度剖面和地下速度观测

在过去的 20 年中，Argo 计划已经收集、处理和分发了全球海洋上层两公里的超过 200 万个温度和盐度垂直剖面图。还收集了类似数量的接近 1,000 dbar 的地下速度观测。本文讲述了全球 Argo 计划的历史，从它产生于世界海洋环流实验的愿望，到其仪器和电信系统的开发和实施，以及遇到的各种技术问题。我们描述了 Argo 数据系统及其质量控制程序，以及从 1999 年到 2019 年 Argo 数据的垂直分辨率和空间覆盖率的逐渐变化。通过与高质量的船上测量值进行比较，评估了浮标数据的准确性，在延迟模式调整后，得出的结论是温度为 0.002°C，压力为 2.4 dbar，盐度为 0.01 PSS-78。最后，讨论了 2020 年以后扩大 Argo 计划的愿景所面临的挑战。