HR: 16:50h
AN: U24A-02 INVITED     [Abstracts]
TI: Building Ocean Profile Databases for Climate System Research: Warming of the World Ocean
AU: * Levitus, S
EM: Sydney.Levitus@NOAA.GOV
AF: NODC/NOAA, 1315 East West Highway, Silver Spring, MD 20910 United States
AB: We describe development of the "World Ocean Database" (WOD), the largest collection of scientifically quality-controlled ocean profile data available internationally without restriction. This database has allowed the estimation of quantities such as the variability of ocean heat content and thermosteric sea level change for the 1955-2003 period. These variables are critical for determining the state of earth's climate system and the response of the climate system to the increase of greenhouse gases in the earth's atmosphere since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. We describe efforts at the NOAA National Oceanographic Data Center and its co-located World Data Center for Oceanography during the past 15 years to build the WOD. This includes substantial international cooperation under the auspices of the IOC sponsored "Global Oceanographic Data Archaeology and Rescue" (GODAR) project. Scientific results describing our present knowledge of ocean heat content variability are also presented.
DE: 1616 Climate variability (1635, 3305, 3309, 4215, 4513)
DE: 1635 Oceans (1616, 3305, 4215, 4513)
SC: Union [U]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005