World Ocean Atlas 2018. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information

World Ocean Atlas 2018 (WOA18) is a set of objectively analyzed (one degree grid and quarter degree grid) climatological fields of in situ temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, Apparent Oxygen Utilization (AOU), percent oxygen saturation, phosphate, silicate, and nitrate at standard depth levels for annual, seasonal, and monthly compositing periods for the World Ocean. Quarter degree fields are for temperature and salinity only. It also includes associated statistical fields of observed oceanographic profile data interpolated to standard depth levels on quarter degree, one degree, and five degree grids. Temperature and salinity fields are available for six decades (1955-1964, 1965-1974, 1975-1984, 1985-1994, 1995-2004, and 2005-2017) an average of all decades representing the period 1955-2017, as well as a thirty year "climate normal" period 1981-2010. Oxygen fields (as well as AOU and percent oxygen saturation) are available using all quality controlled data 1960-2017, nutrient fields using all quality controlled data from the entire sampling period 1878-2017. This accession is a product generated by the National Centers for Environmental Information's (NCEI) Ocean Climate Laboratory Team. The analyses are derived from the NCEI World Ocean Database 2018.

Simple

Date (Publication)
2018-10-15
Identifier
6675938c-c643-4015-9897-2c0b1d1aad60
Purpose
Oceanographic objective analyses have proven to be of great utility to the oceanographic, climate research, geophysical, and operational environmental forecasting communities. Such analyses are used as boundary and/or initial conditions in numerical ocean circulation models and atmosphere-ocean models, for verification of numerical simulations of the ocean, as a form of "sea truth" for satellite measurements such as altimetric observations of sea surface height, for computation of nutrient fluxes by Ekman transport, and for planning oceanographic expeditions among others.
Credit
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (USA)
Status
completed Completed
Publisher
  NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information
United States
(828) 271-4800
Author
  Boyer, Tim P.
Author
  Garcia, Hernan E.
Author
  Locarnini, Ricardo A.
Author
  Zweng, Melissa M.
Author
  Mishonov, Alexey V.
Author
  Reagan, James R.
Author
  Weathers, Katharine A.
Author
  Baranova, Olga K.
Author
  Seidov, Dan
Author
  Smolyar, Igor V.
Thèmes Sextant
  • /Physical Environment
GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0
  • Oceanographic geographical features
Mission Atlantic - Case Studies
  • South Mid-Atlantic Ridge
  • South Brazilian Shelf
  • Atlantic Ocean
Mission Atlantic - BODC Parameters
  • /Chemical oceanography/Dissolved gases
  • /Chemical oceanography/Nutrients
  • /Physical oceanography/Water column temperature and salinity
Mission Atlantic - Data type (DMP)
  • Environmental data
Mission Atlantic - Work Package
  • WP5 Assessing state, drivers and tipping points
  • WP6 Dynamics of ecosystem state and resources
Ocean Hackathon - Ville
  • International and global data portals
Mission Atlantic - Resources
  • Data
Use limitation
CC0 (Creative Commons - Transfer into public domain)
Other constraints

When using temperature, please also cite: Locarnini, R. A., A. V. Mishonov, O. K. Baranova, T. P. Boyer, M. M. Zweng, H. E. García, J. R. Reagan, D. Seidov, K. Weathers, C. R. Paver, and I. Smolyar, 2019. World Ocean Atlas 2018, Volume 1: Temperature. A. Mishonov Technical Ed.; NOAA Atlas NESDIS 81, 52 pp.

When using salinity, please also cite: Zweng, M. M., J. R. Reagan, D. Seidov, T. P. Boyer, R. A. Locarnini, H. E. García, A. V. Mishonov, O. K. Baranova, K. Weathers, C. R. Paver, and I. Smolyar, 2019. World Ocean Atlas 2018, Volume 2: Salinity. A. Mishonov Technical Ed.; NOAA Atlas NESDIS 82, 50 pp.

When using oxygen, please also cite: García, H. E., K. Weathers, C. R. Paver, I. Smolyar, T. P. Boyer, R. A. Locarnini, M. M. Zweng, A. V. Mishonov, O. K. Baranova, D. Seidov, and J. R. Reagan, 2019. World Ocean Atlas 2018, Volume 3: Dissolved Oxygen, Apparent Oxygen Utilization, and Oxygen Saturation. A. Mishonov Technical Ed.; NOAA Atlas NESDIS 83, 38 pp.

When using nutrients, please also cite: García, H. E., K. Weathers, C. R. Paver, I. Smolyar, T. P. Boyer, R. A. Locarnini, M. M. Zweng, A. V. Mishonov, O. K. Baranova, D. Seidov, and J. R. Reagan, 2019. World Ocean Atlas 2018, Volume 4: Dissolved Inorganic Nutrients (phosphate, nitrate and nitrate+nitrite, silicate). A. Mishonov Technical Ed.; NOAA Atlas NESDIS 84, 35 pp.
Spatial representation type
grid Grid
Metadata language
English
Character set
utf8 UTF8
Topic category
  • Oceans
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Begin date
1955-01-01
End date
2017-12-31
Unique resource identifier
EPSG:4326
Geometric object type
Composite
Distribution format
  • NetCDF ( )

OnLine resource
WOA website ( WWW:LINK )
OnLine resource
WOA18 Data Access ( DOI )
OnLine resource
WOA 2018 - Data Access: Statistical mean of Mixed Layer Depth on 1° grid for all decades ( WWW:LINK )
OnLine resource
WOA 2018 - Data Access: Statistical mean of salinity on 1° grid for all decades ( WWW:LINK )
Hierarchy level
Dataset
Description

2018-10-15T23:47:37Z - NCEI Accession 0176314 v1.1 was published.

2019-03-19T02:52:58Z - NCEI Accession 0176314 was revised and v2.2 was published.

2021-03-22T13:54:45Z - NCEI Accession 0192181 v1.1 was published.
File identifier
6675938c-c643-4015-9897-2c0b1d1aad60 XML
Metadata language
English
Character set
UTF8
Hierarchy level
Dataset
Date stamp
2025-05-15T22:41:45.071106Z
Metadata standard name
ISO 19115-3 - SEXTANT
Metadata standard version
1.0
Point of contact
  Ifremer - Sextant
ZI Pointe du Diable , Plouzane , Brittany , 29280 , France
https://sextant.ifremer.fr/eng
 
 

Overviews

overview

Spatial extent

N
S
E
W
thumbnail


Keywords

GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0
Oceanographic geographical features
Mission Atlantic - BODC Parameters
/Chemical oceanography/Dissolved gases /Chemical oceanography/Nutrients /Physical oceanography/Water column temperature and salinity
Mission Atlantic - Case Studies
Atlantic Ocean South Brazilian Shelf South Mid-Atlantic Ridge
Mission Atlantic - Data type (DMP)
Environmental data
Mission Atlantic - Resources
Data
Mission Atlantic - Work Package
WP5 Assessing state, drivers and tipping points WP6 Dynamics of ecosystem state and resources
Thèmes Sextant
/Physical Environment

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