gsw
Gibbs Seawater Oceanographic Package of TEOS-10
Decision gist · record as of 2026-08-14
Yes, if you work with oceanographic data or seawater thermodynamics. The package is stable (Production/Stable status), actively maintained, has no known vulnerabilities, and provides the standard reference implementation of TEOS-10. The C-based approach offers substantial performance gains. The main constraint is the Python >=3.11 requirement and C compiler dependency for source builds, but pre-built wheels mitigate friction on common platforms.AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page — verify before relying
Before you install
- Requires C compiler (gcc/clang on Unix, MSVC on Windows) when building from source; pre-built wheels available for Python >=3.11 on common platforms.
- Medium install friction due to C compilation requirement; pre-built wheels available for common platforms (macOS, Linux x86_64/aarch64, Windows).
- Active maintenance with recent release (54 days ago) and ongoing repository activity.
License · maintenance · safety
BSD-3-Clause (permissive) — BSD-3-Clause permissive license allows commercial and private use with minimal restrictions; attribution required.
last release 2026-06-21 (54 days) · last repo commit 2026-08-11 · 177 stars
0 known vulnerabilities (OSV.dev, 2026-08-14) · 114,910 downloads/mo, #12,275 on PyPI
Alternatives
Verify before relying
pip install gsw
import gsw
import numpy as np
# Calculate absolute salinity from practical salinity and temperature
SA = gsw.SA_from_SP(SP, t, p, lon)
# Calculate potential temperature
pt = gsw.pt_from_t(SA, t, p)- Performance improvements quantified relative to the original pure-Python implementation
- Compatibility with masked arrays and edge cases in real oceanographic datasets
- Whether all 158 wrapped ufuncs are fully documented with equivalent detail
What it is and what it does
GSW-Python is a scientific library that implements the TEOS-10 (Thermodynamic Equation of Seawater 2010) standard for oceanographic calculations. It wraps 165 scalar C functions as numpy ufuncs, exposing 158 of them in the main namespace alongside Python implementations of additional functions. The library replaces an earlier pure-Python implementation with a C-based approach that trades build-time compilation for gains in speed, memory efficiency, and function coverage.
The package is designed for oceanographers and marine scientists who need to compute seawater properties—salinity, temperature, density, sound speed, and related quantities—from field measurements. It depends only on numpy and supports Python >=3.11 across macOS, Linux, Windows, and WebAssembly platforms via pre-built wheels. The core use case is converting between different oceanographic measurement conventions and deriving quantities used in ocean modeling and data analysis.
Use it for
- Convert practical salinity and in-situ temperature to absolute salinity and potential temperature for ocean model initialization
- Calculate seawater density and sound speed from CTD sensor data for water mass classification
- Derive conservative temperature and other thermodynamic properties for oceanographic research
- Batch process large arrays of oceanographic measurements using numpy ufunc broadcasting
- Integrate TEOS-10 calculations into xarray-based ocean data pipelines via gsw-xarray wrapper
Worth the install?
AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page. Verify before relying on it.
Yes, if you work with oceanographic data or seawater thermodynamics.
The package is stable (Production/Stable status), actively maintained, has no known vulnerabilities, and provides the standard reference implementation of TEOS-10. The C-based approach offers substantial performance gains. The main constraint is the Python >=3.11 requirement and C compiler dependency for source builds, but pre-built wheels mitigate friction on common platforms.
Install
gsw on PyPI
Before you install
Medium install friction due to C compilation requirement; pre-built wheels available for common platforms (macOS, Linux x86_64/aarch64, Windows). Active maintenance with recent release (54 days ago) and ongoing repository activity.
Requires C compiler (gcc/clang on Unix, MSVC on Windows) when building from source; pre-built wheels available for Python >=3.11 on common platforms.
License in practice
BSD-3-Clause permissive license allows commercial and private use with minimal restrictions; attribution required.
Quickstart
pip install gsw
import gsw
import numpy as np
# Calculate absolute salinity from practical salinity and temperature
SA = gsw.SA_from_SP(SP, t, p, lon)
# Calculate potential temperature
pt = gsw.pt_from_t(SA, t, p)Verify before relying
- Performance improvements quantified relative to the original pure-Python implementation
- Compatibility with masked arrays and edge cases in real oceanographic datasets
- Whether all 158 wrapped ufuncs are fully documented with equivalent detail
Package facts
| License | BSD-3-Clause permissive |
| Python support | Supports the current Python release >=3.11 |
| Install friction | Medium. Platform-specific wheel |
| Runtime dependencies | 1 packagenumpy |
| Maintenance | Actively maintained 54 days since the last release |
| Last repo commit | |
| First released | |
| Downloads | 114,910 / month, #12,275 on PyPI 30-day window, as of 2026-08-14 |
| Known vulnerabilities | None known OSV.dev, checked 2026-08-14 |
| Classifiers | Development Status :: 5 - Production/StableIntended Audience :: Science/ResearchOperating System :: OS IndependentProgramming Language :: PythonProgramming Language :: Python :: 3 :: OnlyProgramming Language :: Python :: 3.11Programming Language :: Python :: 3.12Programming Language :: Python :: 3.13Programming Language :: Python :: 3.14Topic :: Scientific/Engineering |
Evidence: gsw-3.6.23-cp311-abi3-macosx_10_9_x86_64.whl; gsw-3.6.23-cp311-abi3-macosx_11_0_arm64.whl; gsw-3.6.23-cp311-abi3-manylinux2014_aarch64.manylinux_2_17_aarch64.manylinux_2_28_aarch64.whl; gsw-3.6.23-cp311-abi3-manylinux2014_x86_64.manylinux_2_17_x86_64.manylinux_2_28_x86_64.whl; gsw-3.6.23-cp311-abi3-pyemscripten_2026_0_wasm32.whl; gsw-3.6.23-cp311-abi3-win_amd64.whl
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