Climatological Atlas of the World Ocean

A project to objectively analyze historical ocean temperature, salinity, oxygen, and percent oxygen saturation data for the world ocean has recently been completed at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, Princeton, New Jersey. The results of the project are being made available through distribution of the Climatological Atlas of the World Ocean (NOAA Professional Paper No. 13), and through distribution of magnetic tapes containing the objective analyses. The sources of data used in the project were the Station Data, Mechanical Bathythermograph, and Expendable Bathythermograph files of the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) in Washington, D.C., updated through 1977–1978. The raw data were subjected to quality control procedures, averaged by one-degree squares, and then used as input to an objective analysis procedure that fills in one-degree squares containing no data and smooths the results. Due to the lack of synoptic observations for the world ocean, the historical data are composited by annual, seasonal, and (for temperature) monthly periods.