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Background

The number of data processing and quality control packages, leveraging the power of pandas and xarray, for profiling ocean glider data analysis has grown significantly over the last few years. The parallel, but separate, development of multiple profiling glider platforms and the associated operating systems, has resulted in widely varying native data formats (ASCII, NetCDF, etc.). The development of a common data model will allow users of varying technical backgrounds to harness the power of these community developed toolboxes and accelerate scientific analysis of these data sets.

gdm currently supports parsing and importing of the following glider types:

• Teledyne Webb Research Corporation Slocum Glider

Intial development focused on the Slocum glider due to the primitive nature of the data collection and storage format. The Slocum glider writes data to files stored onboard the glider in a proprietary binary format that are transferred to a shore station, where they are converted to ASCII data tables by means of linux and windows based executables provided by the vendor. This data format stores measurements in a tabular format that is devoid of any meaningful associated metadata (udunits compliant units, CF standard names, etc.) that is not compatible with existing toolboxes.