World Ocean Database, World Ocean Atlas, and Regional

ClimatologiesOcean Climate Laboratory Team/NODC

Outline

• The size and shape of a global ocean profile database

• Data Archeology and Rescue

• Data flow into and out of a global ocean profile database

• NODC products from global ocean database

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World Ocean Database (WOD) A quality controlled collection of ocean profiles,

plankton tow , and ship-based surface measurements from 1772-present.

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Variables in WOD1) temperature2) salinity3) oxygen4) phosphate5) nitrate6) nitrate + nitrite6) silicate5) chlorophyll6) pH7) alkalinity8) pCO2

9) TCO2

10) Plankton11) CFCs 11, 12, and 11312) Tritium13) Helium (noble gas)14) ΔHe-3 (isotope)15) ΔC-13 (isotope)16) ΔC-14 (isotope)17) Argon (noble gas)18) Neon (noble gas)19) O-18 (isotope)20) Beam Attenuation Coefficient (transmissivity)

Instrument types in WOD

1) Station Data (bottles, thermometers)2) CTD3) XBT4) MBT5) Towed CTD6) Profiling Floats7) Drifting buoy (thermistor chains)8) Moored buoy (e.g., TAO, PIRATA TRITON)9) Autonomous Pinniped (instrumented

elephant seals)10) Gliders

Blue: Quality control beyond automatic checks

WOD by Instrument Type

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1934 : Nansen Cast

1960 : MBT

1985 : XBT

2009 :Argo

Temperature Data During Peak of DifferentObserving Systems

Red=Nansen Cast /CTD[1890s/1964]Light Blue=MBT [1939]Dark Blue=XBT [1967]Green=Argo float [2001]Orange=Tropical buoy [1984]

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Measurements vs. Depth WOD13Measurements (X105) Measurements (X104)

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Dep

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World Ocean Database• Contains contributions from national data centers, universities, special projects, fisheries, navies, government agencies, individual

scientists, merchant ships etc.

• Data found on internet, index cards, glass slides, outdated computer media, published cruise reports, etc.

• Original data must be accessible in the NODC archive/permission must be obtained for all data

Data Archeology and RescueNansen’s Arctic expedition, 1893-1896

Amundsen’s South Pole expedition, 1910-1912

* No data from Sverdrup’s Canadian Archipelago expedition (1898-1902)

Trial cruise

Photo: wikipedia

Fram (1892 – 1912)

5 accessions, 3 cruises

Near-real time data from GTSPP: 2013Green – XBT (8,340 casts)Red – CTD (14,521 casts)Blue - Pinniped (3,970 dives)Turquoise – Glider (20,499 half cycles)

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Examples of Delayed-mode data Updates to WOD

World Ocean Database Quarterly

Updates

NOAA

Northeast Fisheries

CCHDOWHOI Ice

Tethered Buoys

ICES

CalCOFI

Japan Ocean Data Center

CSIROLine W

INIDEP (Argentina)

TAO maintenance cruises

Blue – QuarterlyOrange- YearlyGreen - Irregular

Data Dissemination:Yearly by instrumentGeographically by instrumentWODselectAll updated quarterly

Format:Native WOD format(compact ASCII) with conversionroutines

netCDF -> feeds intoNODC Geoportal/THREDDS server

Working now on subset dissemination through Geoportal

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Science andData Community

Convert Data to CommonFormat/Initial Quality Control

Calculate ClimatologiesSecondary Quality Control

Release DatabaseWith Quality Control Flags

Scientific ResearchPost-release Quality ControlMonthly database updates

OCL/NODCMAKE DATA AVAILABLE

Publish Results

FEEDBACK LOOP

WOA13 salinity at 50 m depth for years 2005-2012

WOA13 temperature at 100 m depth at 1/4° grid resolution

WOA13: Increased horizontal and vertical resolutionGulf Stream Example

NODC Regional Climatologies

NODC existing and intended regional climatologies in the Northern Hemisphere in FY12-FY16 (the Nordic Seas Atlas is a collaborative NODC-AARI –University of Bergen project).

Up to date, four regional climatologies have been completed and published at NODC web site. Gulf of Mexico (a supplement to the Gulf of Mexico Digital Atlas), the East Asian Seas Climatology, the Arctic and most recently Greenland-Iceland-Norwegian Seas

NODC Regional Climatology Team: Seidov, D., O.K. Baranova, M. Biddle, T.P. Boyer, D.R. Johnson, A.V. Mishonov and M. Zweng

GINS Regional ClimatologyThe Greenland, Iceland and Norwegian Seas (GINS) – the gateways for water exchange between the North Atlantic Ocean and the Arctic – play a key role in the entire high-latitudinal ocean climate formation and change.

Temperature and currents schema at 200 m (Eldevik et al, 2009)

To provide an improved oceanographic foundation and reference for multi-disciplinary studies of the GINS, NODC Regional Climatology Team developed a new set of high-resolution quality-controlled long-term annual, seasonal and monthly mean temperature and salinity fields on different depth levels.

Northwest Atlantic (NWA) Regional Climatology(SMECC; NODC FY14 - work in progress)

The NWA high-resolution regional climatology is a part of the NOAA-wide Sustained Marine Ecosystem in Changing Climate (SMECC) Project.

NODC Regional Climatology Team1 developed a new set of high-resolution quality-controlled long-term annual, seasonal and monthly mean temperature and salinity fields on different depth levels.

This new regional climatology is based on the World Ocean Database 2013 archive of temperature and salinity from observations spanning over more than a hundred years and incorporates a great deal of new data not previously available.

High-resolution NWA regional climatology provides quality-controlled temperature and salinity on 87 levels with 1/10°x1/10° grid resolution.

NODC NWA web site screenshot (web site is under construction).

High-resolution “all-time” NWA climatologyAt the moment, the “all-time” NWA climatology has been completed on 1/10x1/10° grid. “All-time” means the climatology was compiled using all available data. There will be decadal climatologies compiled for six decades from 1955-1954 to 2005-2012 (the last “decade” has only eight years of data). The decades 1995-2004 and 2005-2012 will be completed by the end of FY14, while earlier decades are due in FY15.

Annual temperature at the surface from NWA regional climatologies with 1°x1°, 1/4°x1/4° and 1/10°x1/10° grid resolution show dramatic improvements provided by high-resolution climatology.

1/4°x1/4° 1/10°x1/10°

Annually-averaged climatological sea surface temperature (°C)

1°x1°

Thank you