World Ocean Atlas
{{Short description|Dataset of ocean properties}}
The World Ocean Atlas (WOA) is a data product of the Ocean Climate Laboratory of the National Centers for Environmental Information (U.S.).{{Cite web |date= 16 June 2021|title=ncei.noaa.gov |url=https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/products/world-ocean-atlas |access-date=June 10, 2024 |website=World Ocean Atlas}} The WOA consists of a climatology of fields of in situ ocean properties for the World Ocean. It was first produced in 1994{{cite web |url=http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/indpub.html#World%20Ocean%20Atlas%201994 |title=World Ocean Atlas 1994 series |access-date=2008-10-22 |publisher=National Oceanographic Data Center |date=2008-08-29 }} (based on the earlier Climatological Atlas of the World Ocean, 1982{{cite book |last=Levitus |first=S. |author-link= |date=1982 |title=Climatological Atlas of the World Ocean |url= |location= |publisher=NOAA/ERL GFDL Professional Paper 13, Princeton, N.J. |page=173 pp |isbn=}}), with later editions at roughly four year intervals in 1998, 2001, 2005, 2009, 2013, 2018, and 2023.{{cite web |url=https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/products/world-ocean-atlas|title=World Ocean Atlas|date=16 June 2021 |access-date=2023-01-14|publisher=National Oceanographic Data Center }}
Dataset
The World Ocean Atlas (WOA) is based on profile data from the World Ocean Database (WOD) Project. The fields that make up the WOA dataset consist of objectively-analysed global grids at 1° spatial resolution. The fields are three-dimensional, and data are typically interpolated onto 33 standardised vertical intervalsStandardised intervals are at 0, 10, 20, 30, 50, 75, 100, 125, 150, 200, 250, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700, 800, 900, 1000, 1100, 1200, 1300, 1400, 1500, 1750, 2000, 2500, 3000, 3500, 4000, 4500, 5000, 5500 m from the surface (0 m) to the abyssal seafloor (5500 m). In terms of temporal resolution, averaged fields are produced for annual, seasonal and monthly time-scales. The WOA fields include ocean temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, apparent oxygen utilisation (AOU), percent oxygen saturation, phosphate, silicic acid, and nitrate. Early editions of the WOA additionally included fields such as mixed layer depth and sea surface height.
In addition to the averaged fields of ocean properties, the WOA also contains fields of statistical information concerning the constituent data that the averages were produced from. These include fields such as the number of data points the average is derived from, their standard deviation and standard error. A lower horizontal resolution (5°) version of the WOA is also available. The WOA dataset is primarily available as compressed ASCII, but since WOA 2005 a netCDF version has also been produced.
Gallery
File:WOA09 sea-surf TMP AYool.png|Annual mean sea surface temperature (WOA 2009)
File:WOA09 sea-surf SAL AYool.png|Annual mean sea surface salinity (WOA 2009)
File:WOA09 sea-surf O2 AYool.png|Annual mean sea surface dissolved oxygen (WOA 2009)
File:WOA09 sea-surf PO4 AYool.png|Annual mean sea surface phosphate (WOA 2009)
File:Annual mean sea surface silicic acid (World Ocean Atlas 2009).png|Annual mean sea surface silicic acid (WOA 2009)
File:WOA09 sea-surf NO3 AYool.png|Annual mean sea surface nitrate (WOA 2009)
File:WOA09 1000m AOU AYool.png|Annual mean apparent oxygen utilization at 1000 m depth (WOA 2009)
See also
{{portal|Geography|Oceans}}
References
{{Reflist|2}}
External links
- [http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/indprod.html NODC Ocean Climate Laboratory datasets and products]
{{physical oceanography}}