Profiling float

A profiling float is an oceanographic instrument platform that changes its buoyancy in order to move vertically in the ocean, repeatedly collecting data that spans a range of depths ("profiles"). Common sensors include temperature, conductivity, and pressure (from which salinity can be calculated), though a wide range of other sensors have been deployed on floats as well. Often, floats are treated as disposable, as the expense of recovering them from remote areas of the ocean is prohibitive; in other cases, floats are deployed for a short time and recovered. A major user of profiling floats is the Argo program.