T.P. Boyer, J.I. Antonov, H.E. Garcia, D.R. Johnson, R.A. Locarnini, A.V. Mishonov, M.T. Pitcher, O.K. Baranova, I.V. Smolyar, 2006. World Ocean Database 2005. S. Levitus, Ed., NOAA Atlas NESDIS 60, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 190 pp., DVDs.

Note that if you are looking for temperature data, you need to mark all data types. Nutrients are only found in Ocean Station Data (OSD). When using the measured variables, note that column 2 are variables that must be present to show up in the distribution map. If you mark temperature, salinity, and any nutrients in column 2, all must be measured at a station to show up. If you mark only one you will see all stations which contain at least that one variable.

%   -172.2700     61.93000  1934  8  7
       0.0000      8.9600
      10.0000      8.9500
      25.0000      0.9000
      50.0000     -1.2300

We do have gridded WOA05 one-degree mean fields (annual, seasonal, monthly) for temperature, salinity, oxygen, phosphate, silicate, and nitrate. We provide a program for these fields available at WOA05 programs page. Program anlyxyz converts the data into a lat, lon, value format which should be recognized by ArcGIS.

NODC maintains two ocean profile databases. The first is the Global Temperature-Salinity Profile Program (GTSPP) and the second is the World Ocean Database (WOD). Having two related databases may seem unnecessary and redundant but both of these databases serve critical and complementary roles.

The GTSPP database is comprised of real-time data transmitted over the Global Telecommunication System (GTS) and delayed-mode data from national oceanographic data centers which participate in the International Oceanographic Data and Information Exchange (IODE) system of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC). Most profiles contain temperature and salinity as a function of depth. The GTSPP focuses on managing data collected after 1990. At the request of the oceanographic community, each GTSPP profile has an associated history file that contains information about any changes made to the profiles or their associated metadata for errors that were discovered during processing. GTSPP is updated on a daily basis and serves the needs of the real-time oceanic and atmospheric forecasting communities.

NODC also supports the World Ocean Database (WOD), which is the world's largest collection of ocean vertical profile data. The WOD contains profiles dating back to the 19th century and includes data from over 20 variables such as temperature, oxygen, nutrients, plankton, and tracers. Every three months, the WOD includes data from GTSPP by applying additional quality control procedures to the latest GTSPP collection. Errors or problems discovered through the WOD quality control processes are reported back to GTSPP for inclusion in that database and its methods, if applicable. The WOD also includes historical data recovered as part of the IOC/IODE Global Oceanographic Data Archaeology and Rescue project. Substantial amounts of additional data received at NODC and its collocated World Data Center for Oceanography, are also included in the WOD. The WOD contains more detailed quality control flags than GTSPP does. The WOD is widely used for ocean climate diagnostic analyses, for long-term ocean data assimilations in numerical models, and for comparisons with satellite data.

Efforts are underway to improve the synchronization between the GTSPP and WOD databases so users can visit the NODC website, and with one selection, acquire all data from both databases with no duplication. Both projects work closely together to mutually improve their databases and processes, which will better serve NODC's user communities.

Citation for WOA05 Temperature
Locarnini, R. A., A. V. Mishonov, J. I. Antonov, T. P. Boyer, and H. E. Garcia, 2006. World Ocean Atlas 2005, Volume 1: Temperature. S. Levitus, Ed. NOAA Atlas NESDIS 61, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 182 pp.

Citation for WOA05 Salinity
Antonov, J. I., R. A. Locarnini, T. P. Boyer, A. V. Mishonov, and H. E. Garcia, 2006. World Ocean Atlas 2005, Volume 2: Salinity. S. Levitus, Ed. NOAA Atlas NESDIS 62, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 182 pp.

Citation for WOA05 Oxygen
Garcia, H. E., R. A. Locarnini, T. P. Boyer, and J. I. Antonov, 2006. World Ocean Atlas 2005, Volume 3: Dissolved Oxygen, Apparent Oxygen Utilization, and Oxygen Saturation. S. Levitus, Ed. NOAA Atlas NESDIS 63, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 342 pp.

Citation for WOA05 Nutrients
Garcia, H. E., R. A. Locarnini, T. P. Boyer, and J. I. Antonov, 2006. World Ocean Atlas 2005, Volume 4: Nutrients (phosphate, nitrate, silicate). S. Levitus, Ed. NOAA Atlas NESDIS 64, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 396 pp.

The standard level designated bottom in our bathymetry for much of the Caspian Sea is 5 (50 meters), so there are climatological values above that depth.

Future work requires re-examining the bathymetry before working on 1/4 degree climatology.

Select temperature as your variable;
spatial resolution (i.e., One Degree);
select objectively analyzed mean;
select annual, seasonal, or monthly fields.
And finally, download the resulting data field.

Note: The data are in compressed format and therefore you will need to uncompress the data. See Instructions on downloading and reading the WOA05 data and WOA05 documentation (pdf, 0.16 MB) for the data format description.

A quick way to convert the format to a lat,lon,value comma-delimited format is to use program anlyxyz which can be found at WOA05 Programs page.

If you want the original data from which the climatologies were calculated, use the WODselect tool.

Select geographic area and data set.
Select all types of data and the geographic area which encompasses the Costa Rica-New York shipping lanes.
Download the data.

The different options for reading the data can be found under Instructions.