page_title: Dive profile
section_title: Decompression profile
hierarchical_section_title: Dive profile / Types of dive profile / Decompression profile
caption_attribution_description: English: A decompression dive profile in yellow showing a no-stop dive profile in red
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: When no stop depth or time limits are exceeded the diver must decompress more extensively than allowed for in the recommended maximum ascent rate to reduce the risk of decompression sickness. This is conventionally done as decompression stops, which are pauses in ascent at specified depths for specified times derived from the decompression algorithm and based on the dive profile history and breathing gas composition. Depth and duration of obligatory decompression stops are specified by the decompression model used. Stops are usually specified in 3-metre (10 ft) steps. The depth of the deepest (first) stop for the same profile history will depend on the algorithm, as some decompression models start decompression at lower supersaturation (lower M-values) than others. The duration of the shallower stops is generally more than the duration of deeper stops on a specific dive. Stops extend the dive profile graph along the time axis.
caption: A decompression dive profile in yellow showing a no-stop dive profile in red
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