The calculation of the WOA time series along the track
is based on the annual mean. It has been suggested that the observed differences between WOA and Argo could be
an indication of climatological seasonality of the salinity
field. The available data are too sparse to verify this. Inspection
of the seasonal WOA salinity fields for the region
at 1000m depth reveals differences between seasons of up
to 0.08 (i.e. larger than the observed differences between
WOA and Argo); but inspection of the data density shows
that most seasonal mean fields were constructed from one or
two cruises that traversed the region in different directions
during different years and left large areas without any data
coverage. It is therefore by no means clear whether the differences
between seasons in theWOA data set represent seasonal
or interannual variability.