WOCE Hydrographic Programme Atlases

The Hydrographic Programme of the international World Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE) was a comprehensive global hydrographic survey of physical and chemical properties, of unprecedented scope and quality, and represents the "state of the oceans" during the 1990s. Click on the images below to proceed to the respective electronic atlases.

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Link to Southern Atlas pdf at UC's eScholarship
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Link to Pacific Atlas pdf at UC's eScholarship
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Link to Atlantic Atlas pdf at UC's eScholarship
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Link to Indian Atlas pdf at UC's eScholarship

About Us

The Hydrographic Programme of the World Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE) was a global hydrographic survey of physical and chemical properties, representing the "state of the oceans" during the 1990s. Four web-based and print atlases present graphically the results of the WHP for each major ocean basin: I Southern, II Pacific, III Atlantic, and IV Indian Oceans. The web-based WOCE Global Hydrographic Climatology (GHC) provides gridded distributions of basic properties.



Each of the 4 basin-oriented volumes includes:

  • vertical sections of the scalar parameters measured during each of the WOCE One-time hydrographic survey cruises.
  • horizontal maps showing the geographical distribution of properties at standard depths and along isoneutral surfaces.
  • property-property plots of the parameters for each section.

Each atlas is available online, including a “Print Atlas” that is a copy of the print volume with full introductory text and a "Digital Atlas" that presents the same graphical material, with additional properties and levels, additional data sets, and bibliographic material, and in large-format, archival printed volumes (see contact information below).

The complementary WOCE GHC provides gridded distributions of temperature, salinity, oxygen, phosphate, nitrate, and silicate for 45 depth levels between the surface and 6000 meters with 0.5 degree resolution along latitude and longitude. The climatology website is http://icdc.zmaw.de/woce.html. The WGHC was used for the WHP Atlantic atlas maps.

In a related effort, the eWOCE online atlas (http://www.ewoce.org) (Schlitzer, 2002) provides a gallery of WHP sections and convenient access to plotting WHP data.

WHP data sets are available through the CLIVAR and Carbon Hydrographic Data Office (CCHDO, http://cchdo.ucsd.edu) and the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC, http://cdiac.ornl.gov).

Contact

Request an Atlas

To contact us or request a print version of the Pacific or Indian atlases, please send an email to woceatlas@ucsd.edu.