In order to understand marine ecosystem responses to a range of habitat variability in coastal zones modified by glacial freshwater outflows, biophysical data were collected in three study regions that included four major glacial fjord systems around the Gulf of Alaska. Each of 172 discrete stations within the three study regions was sampled once during the peak ice-melt season in summer. A suite of geographic, oceanographic, nutrient and biological attributes was sampled at each station (see Arimitsu et al. 2008, Renner et al. 2012, Arimitsu et al. 2016 for details). This dataset includes station information, including date, time, location, distance variables that were derived in a geographic information software, and zooplankton abundance indices.

Seaglider is a buoyancy driven autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) developed by scientists and engineers at the University of Washington's School of Oceanography and Applied Physics Laboratory. Seagliders are designed to glide from the ocean surface to a programmed depth and back while measuring temperature, salinity, depth-averaged current, and other quantities along a sawtooth trajectory through the water. Seaglider has entered wide use in scientific deployments. They are designed for missions in range of several thousand kilometers and durations of many months. Seagliders are commanded remotely and report their measurements in near real time via wireless telemetry.

These data are part of the Gulf Watch Alaska (GWA) long term monitoring program, pelagic monitoring component. This dataset consists of multiple tables (one for each year of sampling), providing several physical oceanographic measures at sampling stations throughout Prince William Sound, Alaska. Data were collected with a Seabird Electronics conductivity-temperature-depth (CTD) profiler equipped with various sensors and data were processed with Seabird Electronics software. Data include: date, time, latitude, longitude, depth, conductivity, temperature, salinity, turbidity, fluorescence, density, oxygen, pH, Par, sound velocity, beam attenuation and transmission at one meter increments.