World Ocean Database Project

{{short description|International collection of ocean profile-plankton data}}

The World Ocean Database Project, or WOD, is a project established by the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC). The project leader was Sydney Levitus, who was also director of the International Council for Science (ICSU) World Data Center (WDC) for Oceanography, Silver Spring.{{Cite web|url=http://www.ioc-unesco.org/index.php?option=com_oe&task=viewDocumentRecord&docID=1102|title=Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission|website=www.ioc-unesco.org|language=en-gb|access-date=2017-07-18}} Sydney Levitus retired in 2013.{{Cite web |last=Mishnov |first=Alexey |date=July 2019 |title=World Ocean Atlas 2018 Volume 4: Dissolved Inorganic Nutrients (phosphate, nitrate and nitrate+nitrite, silicate) |url=https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/sites/default/files/2020-04/woa18_vol4.pdf |access-date=June 7, 2024 |website=NOAA NCEI |page=4

|quote=He retired in 2013 after 39 years of distinguished civil service. }} In recognition of the success of the IOC Global Oceanographic Data Archaeological and Rescue Project (GODAR project), a proposal was presented at the 16th Session of the Committee on International Oceanographic Data and Information Exchange (IODE), which was held in Lisbon, Portugal, in October–November 2000, to establish the World Ocean Database Project. This project is intended to stimulate international exchange of modern oceanographic data and encourage the development of regional oceanographic databases as well as the implementation of regional quality control procedures. This new Project was endorsed by the IODE at the conclusion of the Portugal meeting, and the IOC subsequently approved this project in June 2001.

The World Ocean Database represents the world's largest collection of ocean profile-plankton data available internationally without restriction. Data comes from the: (a) Sixty-five National Oceanographic Data Centers and nine Designated National Agencies (DNAs) (in Croatia, Finland, Georgia, Malaysia, Romania, Senegal, Sweden, Tanzania, and Ukraine), (b) International Ocean Observing Projects such as the completed World Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE) and Joint Global Ocean Flux Study (JGOFS), as well as currently active programs such as CLIVAR and Argo, (c) International Ocean Data Management Projects such as the IOC/IODE Global Oceanographic Data Archaeology and Rescue Project (GODAR), and (d) Real-time Ocean Observing Systems such as the IOC/IODE Global Temperature-Salinity Profile Project (GTSPP). All ocean data acquired by WDC Silver Spring – USA are considered as part of the WDC archive and are freely available as public domain data.

Comparison of World Ocean Databases

The World Ocean Database was first released in 1994{{cite web |url=http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/indpub.html#World%20Ocean%20Atlas%201994 |title=World Ocean Atlas 1994 series |publisher=National Oceanographic Data Center}} and updates have been released approximately every four years, 1998,{{cite web |url=http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/indpub.html#World%20Ocean%20Atlas%201998 |title=World Ocean Atlas 1998 series |publisher=National Oceanographic Data Center}} 2001,{{cite web |url=http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/WOA01/pr_woa01.html |title=World Ocean Atlas 2001 |publisher=National Oceanographic Data Center}} and 2005.{{cite web |url=http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/WOA05/pr_woa05.html |title=World Ocean Atlas 2005 |publisher=National Oceanographic Data Center}} The most recent World Ocean Database series, WOD09, was released in September 2009.{{cite web |url=http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/WOA09/pr_woa09.html |title=World Ocean Atlas 2009 |publisher=National Oceanographic Data Center}} The WOD09 has more than 9 million temperature profiles and 3.6 million salinity profiles. The table shows a comparison of the number of stations by instrument type in WOD09 with previous NODC/WDC global ocean databases.

Instrument Type	NODC (1974)Based on statistics from Levitus, S. (1982) {{cite web\|url=ftp://ftp.nodc.noaa.gov/pub/data.nodc/woa/PUBLICATIONS/levitus_atlas_1982.pdf \|title=Climatological Atlas of the World Ocean \|url-status=dead \|archive-date=August 4, 2019 \|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190804213632/ftp://ftp.nodc.noaa.gov/pub/data.nodc/woa/PUBLICATIONS/levitus_atlas_1982.pdf }}, NOAA Professional Paper No. 13, pp. 191	NODC (1991)Based on NODC Temperature Profile CD-ROM	WOA94	WOD98	WOD01	WOD05	WOD09
class="wikitable" style="margin:1em auto;"
style="text-align: right;" \| OSD WOD09 OSD dataset includes data from 121,763 low-resolution CTD casts and 1,489 low-resolution XCTD casts	425,000	783,912	1,194,407	1,373,440	2,121,042	2,258,437	2,541,298
style="text-align: right;" \| CTD WOD09 CTD dataset includes data from 5,985 high-resolution XCTD casts	na	66,450	89,000	189,555	311,943	443,953	641,845
style="text-align: right;" \| MBT WOD09 MBT dataset includes data from 80,325 DBT profiles and 5,659 Micro-BT profiles	775,000	980,377	1,922,170	2,077,200	2,376,206	2,421,940	2,426,749
style="text-align: right;" \| XBT	290,000	704,424	1,281,942	1,537,203	1,743,590	1,930,413	2,104,490
style="text-align: right;" \| MRB	na	na	na	107,715	297,936	445,371	566,544
style="text-align: right;" \| DRB	na	na	na	na	50,549	108,564	121,828
style="text-align: right;" \| PFL	na	na	na	na	22,637	168,988	547,985
style="text-align: right;" \| UOR	na	na	na	na	37,645	46,699	88,190
style="text-align: right;" \| APB	na	na	na	na	75,665	75,665	88,583
style="text-align: right;" \| GLD	na	na	na	na	na	338	5,857
style="text-align: right;" \|Total Stations	1,490,000	2,535,163	4,487,519	5,285,113	7,037,213	7,900,368	9,133,369
style="text-align: right;" \| Plankton	na	na	na	83,650	142,900	150,250	218,695
style="text-align: right;" \| SUR Surface data are represented differently than profile data in WOD09 – all observations in a single cruise are combined into one “station” with zero depth, values of measured variables along with latitude, longitude, and Julian year-day to identify and locate individual sets of observations	na	na	na	na	4,743	9,178	9,178

Instrument Types

Ocean profile, plankton data, and metadata are available in the World Ocean Database for

29 depth-dependent variables (physical and biochemical) and 11 instruments types: Ocean Station Data (OSD), Mechanical Bathythermograph (MBT), Expendable Bathythermograph (XBT), Conductivity, Temperature, Depth (CTD), Undulating Oceanographic Recorder (UOR), Profiling Float (PFL), Moored Buoy (MRB), Drifting Buoy (DRB), Gliders (GLD), Autonomous Pinniped Bathythermograph (APB).

Word Ocean Database Products

The data in the World Ocean Database are made available through the online search and retrieval system known as WODselect. The World Ocean Atlas (WOAselect) series is a set of gridded (1° grid), climatological, objectively analyzed fields of the variables in the World Ocean Database. The WOAselect is a selection tool by which the user can designate a geographic area, depth, and oceanographic variable to view climatological means or related statistics for a given variable at the requested depth for the requested geographic area.

References

External links

[https://web.archive.org/web/20040807005546/http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/General/NODC-dataexch/NODC-godar.html GODAR project and the World Ocean Database Project]
[http://www.icsu.org/index.php4 International Council for Science (ICSU)]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20090130144156/http://www.iode.org/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1 International Oceanographic Data and Information Exchange (IODE)]
[http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/indprod.html NODC Ocean Climate Laboratory datasets and products]
[https://web.archive.org/web/19970512211300/http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/wdc/wdcmain.html World Data Center system]
[http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/WOA09/pr_woa09.html World Ocean Atlas 2009 (WOA09)]
[http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/WOD/pr_wod.html World Ocean Database 2009 (WOD09)]
[http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/SELECT/dbsearch/dbsearch.html World Ocean Database Select (WODselect) ]

Category:Oceanography

Category:Scientific databases

Category:World Ocean