World Ocean Database and the Global Temperature and Salinity Profile Program Database: Synthesis of historical and near real-time ocean profile data

Tim Boyer1, Leangchwan Sun2, Ricardo A Locarnini1, Alexey V Mishonov3, Norman Hall2 and Mathieu Ouellet4, (1)National Oceanographic Data Center, Silver Spring, MD, United States, (2)National Centers for Environmental Information, Silver Spring, MD, United States, (3)Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites University of Maryland, College Park, MD, United States, (4)Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Ocean Science and Data, Ottawa, ON, Canada
Abstract:
The World Ocean Database (WOD) contains systematically quality controlled historical and recent ocean profile data (temperature, salinity, oxygen, nutrients, carbon cycle variables, biological variables) ranging from Captain Cooks second voyage (1773) to this year’s Argo floats. The US National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) also hosts the Global Temperature and Salinity Profile Program (GTSPP) Continuously Managed Database (CMD) which provides quality controlled near-real time ocean profile data and higher level quality controlled temperature and salinity profiles from 1990 to present. Both databases are used extensively for ocean and climate studies. Synchronization of these two databases will allow easier access and use of comprehensive regional and global ocean profile data sets for ocean and climate studies. Synchronizing consists of two distinct phases: 1) a retrospective comparison of data in WOD and GTSPP to ensure that the most comprehensive and highest quality data set is available to researchers without the need to individually combine and contrast the two datasets and 2) web services to allow the constantly accruing near-real time data in the GTSPP CMD and the continuous addition and quality control of historical data in WOD to be made available to researchers together, seamlessly.
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