Minimum duration

Finally, the above criteria must be valid for a certain minimum duration before one can consider the data to be a profile. For example, many of the above criteria may be satisfied by a vertical profiler dangling from its tether near the surface before it is launched. But they will only be satisfied for a few seconds. The appropriate choice of minimum duration depends on the typical duration of a real profile. In shallow water this may be ~10 seconds while for deeper deployments ~100 seconds may be more appropriate.

It is important to plot the pressure and some other parameters for a few of the profiles obtained by your choice of parameters to make sure that the results are reasonable and consistent with your expectations.