Processed Expendable Bathythermograph (XBT) casts collected during the Marion Island Relief Voyage on the SA Agulhas II Voyage 057, May 2023

Here we present 31 processed Expendable Bathythermograph (XBT) casts collected in the South West Indian Ridge area and along the Crossroads Transect, between 14 May 2023 and 18 May 2023, during the 2023 Marion Relief Voyage on the SA Agulhas II Voyage 057. The South African component of the international South Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation project (SAMOC-SA) aims to characterise the time-mean and time-varying components of the SAMOC in the South Atlantic Ocean and monitor the variability of the main Southern Ocean frontal systems associated with the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC), south of Africa. The Crossroads monitoring line, directly under the altimetry track N198, is sampled annually during the Marion Relief voyages, using a combination of Conductivity-Temperature-Depth (CTD) stations and XBT casts, where the XBT casts are done, at set intervals, between CTD stations to complement the CTD data.