ec_to_sal: Convert electrical conductivity to salinity (PSU)

In ctdenney/OGFLtools: Several utility functions for use in the OGFL

Convert electrical conductivity to salinity (PSU)

Description

This function converts electrical conductivity to salinity given temperature and the measured conductivity, as described in Unesco 1983. Algorithms for computation of fundamental properties of seawater, 1983

Usage

ec_to_sal(temp, cond)

Arguments

temp	Temperature (degrees Celsius, ?C)
cond	Conductivitiy (microsiemens, uS)

Value

temp

Temperature should be either the temperature at which the reading was taken in celsius, in the case of electrical conductivity, or 25C, in the case of specific conductance (which is electrical conductivity normalized to a a temperature of 25C). It is extremely important that the user knows which their values are. The units are identical for both, but can result in wildly different calculated salinities if one is mistaken for the other. The SLS, 20mm and SKT surveys from CDFW have been specific conductance for the entirety of their run, EVEN WHEN THE OLD DATABASES REFFERRED TO ELECTRICAL CONDUCTIVITY. Bay study was electical conductivity from 1981-1990 (inclusive), but specific conductance after that period. Our own database is unfortunately a bit of both, but we have recorded calculated salinity directly, so this should always be used instead of conductance. This might change in the future.

Author(s)

Christian Denney

References

UNESCO 44: Algorithms for computation of fundamental properties of seawater

Examples

{
  }

ctdenney/OGFLtools documentation built on Feb. 8, 2023, 5:47 p.m.