NOAA has released a newly expanded World Ocean Database. The previous database was issued in 2001. The 2005 World Ocean Database is the world’s largest collection of scientific information about the oceans of the globe dating back as far as 1800. The expanded database includes an additional 900,000 temperature profiles and 29 information categories, including salinity, oxygen levels, nutrient content, etc.
According to Zdenka Willis, director of NOAA’s National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC), “Having such detailed and extensive data about the world’s oceans is a major key to understanding how the oceans are changing, and how this change impacts the overall atmosphere above.”
The database is available online at www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/indprod.html or in DVD format by contacting NODC Services atNODC.Services@noaa.gov.
