page_title: Dive profile
section_title: Saw-tooth profile
hierarchical_section_title: Dive profile / Types of dive profile / Saw-tooth profile
caption_attribution_description: English: A saw-tooth dive profile
context_page_description: A dive profile is a description of a diver's pressure exposure over time. It may be as simple as just a depth and time pair, as in: "sixty for twenty," or as complex as a second by second graphical representation of depth and time recorded by a personal dive computer. Several common types of dive profile are specifically named, and these may be characteristic of the purpose of the dive. For example, a working dive at a limited location will often follow a constant depth profile, and a recreational dive is likely to follow a multilevel profile, as the divers start deep and work their way up a reef to get the most out of the available breathing gas. The names are usually descriptive of the graphic appearance.
  The intended dive profile is useful as a planning tool as an indication of the risks of decompression sickness and oxygen toxicity for the exposure, and also for estimating the volume of open-circuit breathing gas needed for a planned dive, as these depend in part upon the depth and duration of the dive. A dive profile diagram is conventionally drawn with elapsed time running from left to right and depth increasing down the page.
context_section_description: In a saw tooth profile the diver ascends and descends a number of times during the dive. Each ascent and descent increases the risk of decompression sickness if there are any bubbles already in the diver's tissues. The increase in risk depends on the ascent rate, magnitude and duration of the upwards excursion, the saturation levels of the tissues, and to some extent the time spent after returning to depth. Accurate assessment of the increase of risk is not currently (2016) possible, but some dive computers make an adjustment to the decompression requirement based on violations of recommended maximum ascent rate as an attempt to compensate.
caption: A saw-tooth dive profile
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