ASCII format: A comma separated value (csv) format. The first and second line are informational lines (first character "#").

Line 1 states whether this is WOA05 (1-degree) or 1/4 degree (Boyer et. al. 2005) data, the type of field, the requested variable, and the time period (ANNUAL, or given season or month).

Line 2 gives the standard depth level for each comma separated calculated value for the variable given on line 1.

Lines 3 through the end of the file: The latitude and longitude of the center of the geographic box represented by the values, and the calculated variable values at each given standard depth found in line 2.

ArcGIS: This consists of 3 files necessary for utilizing shapefiles. The 3 files are compressed and combined in a tar file. When untar'ed and uncompressed the files can be entered into GIS software.

Use Step-by-step instructions for uploading shape files in to ArcMap software.

We would like to thank Betsy Schenck-Gardner of the National Coastal Data Development Center (NCDDC) for providing us with the initial routines for creating shapefiles.