Ocean
Oceanic variables include sea surface temperature, salinity, currents, air-sea heat fluxes, ocean heat content, and much more. Overview pages summarize and compare selected datasets of a given variable.
To find a specific dataset or variable, jump to the search box below or click your desired variable from among the blue sub-category buttons.
To see only the datasets with expert-written commentaries, select the "Datasets with guidance" button when using the search box.
Sub-categories
Climate datasets

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Argo is an array of over 3600 profiling floats distributed almost uniformly across the global oceans. First deployed in 2000, Argo floats provide temperature and…
Main variables and Earth System components
Ocean Salinity Sub Surface Salinity Sub Surface TemperatureExperts contributing reviews
- Willis, Josh

Years of record
- to
Sea surface temperature (SST) data sets are an essential resource for monitoring and understanding climate variability and climate change. By surface area, SSTs…
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Formats
- N/A
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Timestep
- Climatology, Daily, Monthly, Weekly
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Domain
- Global
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Collections
- Overview / Comparison page
Experts contributing reviews
- N/A

Years of record
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"The CMCC Global Ocean Physical Reanalysis System (C-GLORS) is used to simulate the state of the ocean in the last decades. It consists of a variational data…
Main variables and Earth System components
Ocean Ocean Heat Content SST - sea surface temperature Salinity Sub Surface Salinity Sub Surface Temperature mixed layer depth sea surface height u, v current componentsExperts contributing reviews
- Storto, Andrea

Years of record
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The Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) is defined by the leading pattern (EOF) of sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies in the North Pacific basin (typically,…
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Formats
- ascii
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Timestep
- Monthly
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Domain
- Pacific Ocean
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Collections
- N/A
Experts contributing reviews
- Deser, Clara | Trenberth, Kevin

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The global sea level record from tide gauges is an important indicator of the evolution and impact of global climate change. Tide gauge data also capture a…
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Formats
- N/A
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Timestep
- Sub-daily, Daily, Monthly, Annual
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Domain
- Global
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Collections
- N/A
Experts contributing reviews
- Hamlington, Benjamin | Thompson, Phil

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The NOAA Extended Reconstruction Sea Surface Temperature (ERSST) provides global, spatially complete SST data at a monthly timestep for 1854-present. Compared…
Experts contributing reviews
- Huang, Boyin

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The CERA-20C is a global, coupled reanalysis spanning 1901-2010 with a focus on low-frequency climate variability. Similar to ERA-20C, the surface observations…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Multiple variables Cryosphere Sea Ice Concentration OceanExperts contributing reviews
- Laloyaux, Patrick

Years of record
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The Institute of Atmospheric Physics (IAP) ocean temperature analysis features global coverage of the oceans, at 1° x1° horizontal resolution on 41 vertical…
Main variables and Earth System components
Ocean Ocean Heat Content Sea Level Sub Surface TemperatureExperts contributing reviews
- Cheng, Lijing

Years of record
- to
The NOAA Extended Reconstruction Sea Surface Temperature (ERSST) provides global, spatially complete SST data at a monthly timestep for 1854-present. Version5 is…
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Timestep
- Climatology, Monthly
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Domain
- Global
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Collections
- Diagnostic Data Sets
Experts contributing reviews
- Hausfather, Zeke

Years of record
- to
HadSST4 provides monthly SST anomalies on a 5°x5° grid for 1850-present. The anomalies are derived from a 30-year climatology spanning 1961-90. Coverage is…
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Formats
- netCDF
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Timestep
- Monthly
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Domain
- Global
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Collections
- Diagnostic Data Sets
Experts contributing reviews
- Kennedy, John

Years of record
- to
EN4 is a subsurface temperature and salinity dataset for the global oceans, spanning 1900 to present at a monthly timestep. It includes two types of data…
Main variables and Earth System components
Ocean Sub Surface Salinity Sub Surface Temperature Sub-surface data potential temperatureExperts contributing reviews
- Killick, Rachel

Years of record
- N/A
El Niño and La Niña, the two phases of ENSO, are sometimes described as opposites. However, there are asymmetries in their spatial structure, amplitude, duration…
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Formats
- N/A
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Timestep
- N/A
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Domain
- Tropics
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Collections
- N/A
Experts contributing reviews
- Santoso, Agus

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- to
HadIOD (Met Office Hadley Centre Integrated Ocean Database) is a global database of in situ ocean temperature and salinity observations, spanning 1850-present on…
Main variables and Earth System components
Ocean SST - sea surface temperature Salinity Sub Surface TemperatureExperts contributing reviews
- Atkinson, Chris

Years of record
- N/A
In each of the world’s tropical ocean basins, year-to-year climate variability is primarily governed by fluctuations in the zonal sea surface temperature (SST)…
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Formats
- N/A
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Timestep
- N/A
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Domain
- Atlantic Ocean, Pacific Ocean
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Collections
- N/A
Experts contributing reviews
- Amaya, Dillon

Years of record
- to
HadCRUT5 is one of the main datasets used to monitor global and regional surface temperature variability and trends. It is a global surface temperature product…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Air Temperature at 2m Ocean SST - sea surface temperature-
Formats
- netCDF
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Timestep
- Monthly
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Domain
- Global
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Collections
- Diagnostic Data Sets
Experts contributing reviews
- Hausfather, Zeke

Years of record
- to
The Walsh and Chapman Sea Ice Data Set provides a long record of Arctic sea ice concentrations on a monthly basis for 1870-2011. Historical observations were…
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Formats
- ascii
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Timestep
- Monthly
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Domain
- NH - Northern Hemisphere, Arctic
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Collections
- N/A
Experts contributing reviews
- Chapman, William

Years of record
- to
The most up-to-date version is known as Kaplan Extended SST v2, which combines statistically infilled grids of UK Met Office SSTs for 1856-1981 with a…
Experts contributing reviews
- Kaplan, Alexy

Years of record
- N/A
ICOADS (International Comprehensive Ocean-Atmosphere Data Set) is the most comprehensive archive of global marine surface climate observations available.…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Air Temperature Budget Cloud Properties Latent & sensible heat flux Sea Level Pressure Specific Humidity Wind Ocean SST - sea surface temperatureExperts contributing reviews
- Deser, Clara

Years of record
- to
The CFSR is a third generation reanalysis product. It is a global, high resolution, coupled atmosphere-ocean-land surface-sea ice system designed to provide the…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Air Temperature Geopotential Height Precipitable water Ocean-
Formats
- GRIB
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Timestep
- Sub-daily, Monthly
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Domain
- Global
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Collections
- Climate Analysis Section (CAS) Data Catalog
Experts contributing reviews
- N/A

Years of record
- N/A
A climate index is a simple diagnostic quantity that is used to characterize an aspect of a geophysical system such as a circulation pattern. A variety of…
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Formats
- N/A
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Timestep
- N/A
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Domain
- N/A
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Collections
- Overview / Comparison page
Experts contributing reviews
- N/A

Years of record
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There are several indices used to monitor the tropical Pacific, all of which are based on SST anomalies averaged across a given region. Usually the anomalies…
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Formats
- ascii
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Timestep
- Monthly
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Domain
- Pacific Ocean, Tropics
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Collections
- Climate Analysis Section (CAS) Data Catalog
Experts contributing reviews
- Trenberth, Kevin

Years of record
- to
The Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO) has been identified as a coherent mode of natural variability occurring in the North Atlantic Ocean with an…
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Timestep
- Monthly, Decadal
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Collections
- Climate Analysis Section (CAS) Data Catalog
Experts contributing reviews
- Trenberth, Kevin | Zhang, Rong

Years of record
- to
The NOAA Optimal Interpolation SST analysis provides global, spatially complete SSTs on a weekly and monthly basis for 1982-present.
Experts contributing reviews
- Banzon, Viva | Reynolds, Richard

Years of record
- to
The Hadley Centre Global Sea Ice and Sea Surface Temperature (HadISST) is a combination of monthly globally complete fields of SST and sea ice concentration for…
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Timestep
- Monthly
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Domain
- Global
Experts contributing reviews
- N/A

Years of record
- to
The NOAA Extended Reconstruction Sea Surface Temperature (ERSST) provides global, spatially complete SST data at a monthly timestep for 1854-present. Version3 is…
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Timestep
- Monthly
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Domain
- Global
Experts contributing reviews
- Huang, Boyin | Livermore, Jay | Smith, Tom

Years of record
- to
The global mean sea level timeseries is an excellent, integrative indicator of climate change, providing a record independent of common metrics like global…
Experts contributing reviews
- Nerem, R.S.

Years of record
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High resolution (0.25°) SSTs were derived from the AMSR-E, a passive microwave radiometer flying on NASA's AQUA satellite. Remote Sensing Systems distributes the…
Experts contributing reviews
- N/A

Years of record
- to
This data set (GSSTF 2C) has been superceded by GSSTF3 released in July 2012. The Goddard Satellite-based Surface Turbulent Fluxes (GSSTF) data set is part of…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Specific Humidity Wind Stress Latent & sensible heat flux Precipitable water Ocean Surface Flux-
Timestep
- Climatology, Daily, Monthly, Seasonal, Annual
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Domain
- Global
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Collections
- Diagnostic Data Sets, NCAR-DOE-CESM, oceandiagnostics
Experts contributing reviews
- N/A

Years of record
- to
The merged Hadley-OI sea surface temperature (SST) and sea ice concentration (SIC) data sets were specifically developed as surface forcing data sets for AMIP…
Main variables and Earth System components
Cryosphere Sea Ice Concentration Ocean SST - sea surface temperature-
Formats
- netCDF
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Timestep
- Monthly
Experts contributing reviews
- N/A

Years of record
- N/A
World Ocean Atlas 2009 (WOA09) is a set of objectively analyzed (1 degree grid) climatological fields of in situ temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen,…
Main variables and Earth System components
Ocean Dissolved Oxygen SST - sea surface temperature Salinity Sub Surface Salinity Sub Surface Temperature oxygen saturation phosphate silicate-
Timestep
- Climatology, Monthly, Seasonal, Annual
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Domain
- Global
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Collections
- Diagnostic Data Sets, NCAR-DOE-CESM, oceandiagnostics
Experts contributing reviews
- N/A

Years of record
- to
The NOAA/NSIDC Climate Data Record (CDR) of sea ice concentration is available at 25 x 25 km spatial resolution in daily or monthly timesteps for 1987-2014. It…
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Formats
- netCDF
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Timestep
- Daily, Monthly
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Collections
- Climate Data Record
Experts contributing reviews
- Meier, Walter

Years of record
- to
The Coordinated Ocean Research Experiments version 2 (COREv2) data set consists of a globally complete set of air-sea fluxes of momentum, heat and freshwater…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Evaporation Precipitation Radiation Wind Stress Land Runoff and Streamflow Ocean Surface Flux-
Formats
- netCDF
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Timestep
- Monthly
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Domain
- Global
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Collections
- Diagnostic Data Sets, NCAR-DOE-CESM, atmosdiagnostics, oceandiagnostics
Experts contributing reviews
- Yeager, Stephen

Years of record
- to
The Hamburg Ocean Atmosphere Parameters and Fluxes from Satellite Data (HOAPS) set is a satellite-based climatology of precipitation, evaporation and freshwater…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Evaporation Evaporation-Precipitation Precipitation Radiation Specific Humidity Wind Latent & sensible heat flux Precipitable water Ocean SST - sea surface temperature-
Formats
- netCDF
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Timestep
- Climatology, Sub-daily, Monthly, Pentad
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Domain
- Global
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Collections
- Boundary Conditions
Experts contributing reviews
- N/A

Years of record
- to
The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) refers to a pair of NASA satellites that has flown in low-Earth orbit since 2002. The satellites use a…
Main variables and Earth System components
Cryosphere Glaciers Ice Sheet Mass Land Groundwater Water Storage surface water Ocean Bottom pressure-
Timestep
- Daily, Monthly
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Domain
- Global
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Collections
- Diagnostic Data Sets, NCAR-DOE-CESM, landdiagnostics, landicediagnostics
Experts contributing reviews
- Swenson, Sean

Years of record
- to
The sea ice data derived from AMSR-E using the ARTIST sea ice (ASI) algorithm offer a factor of 4 finer spatial resolution than most sea ice data sets from…
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Timestep
- Daily
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Collections
- N/A
Experts contributing reviews
- N/A

Years of record
- to
The Eumetsat Ocean and Sea Ice Satellite Applications Facility provides a "reprocessed" data set of Arctic and Antarctic sea ice concentration for 1978-2009.…
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Formats
- netCDF
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Timestep
- Daily
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Collections
- N/A
Experts contributing reviews
- N/A

Years of record
- to
Spanning 1871-present at monthly timesteps, HadISST provides the longest gridded sea ice data available for both the Arctic and Antarctic. It is a 1° x 1°…
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Timestep
- Monthly
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Collections
- Boundary Conditions
Experts contributing reviews
- N/A

Years of record
- to
NASA Team sea ice refers to a well-known algorithm used to estimate sea ice concentration from passive microwave brightness temperatures. This page discusses the…
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Timestep
- Daily, Monthly
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Collections
- Diagnostic Data Sets, NCAR-DOE-CESM, seaicediagnostics
Experts contributing reviews
- N/A

Years of record
- to
Bootstrap sea ice refers to a well-known algorithm used to estimate sea ice concentration from passive microwave brightness temperatures. It can be applied to…
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Timestep
- Daily, Monthly
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Collections
- N/A
Experts contributing reviews
- N/A

Years of record
- to
The NOAA Optimal Interpolation (OI) v2 sea ice data set contains gridded, weekly or monthly resolution sea ice concentration estimates for both the Northern and…
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Formats
- netCDF
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Timestep
- Monthly, Weekly
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Collections
- Boundary Conditions
Experts contributing reviews
- N/A

Years of record
- N/A
Sea ice concentration is both an indicator and driver of high-latitude climate change with strong societal and ecological importance. It is a key boundary…
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Formats
- N/A
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Timestep
- N/A
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Collections
- Overview / Comparison page
Experts contributing reviews
- N/A

Years of record
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The AMSR-E/NASA Team 2 (NT2) data set of Arctic and Antarctic sea ice concentration is available at daily timesteps and 12.5 km (optionally 25km) spatial…
Experts contributing reviews
- N/A

Years of record
- to
Version 3: The Goddard Satellite-based Surface Turbulent Fluxes (GSSTF) data set is part of the NASA Making Earth Science Data Records for Use in Research…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Specific Humidity Wind Wind Stress Latent & sensible heat flux Ocean Surface Flux-
Formats
- HDF-EOS
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Timestep
- Climatology, Sub-daily, Daily, Monthly
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Domain
- Global
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Collections
- Climate Data Record
Experts contributing reviews
- N/A

Years of record
- to
These ocean surface flux data sets are derived primarily using data from multiple satellites. The COARE 3.0 bulk algorithm [Fairall et al. (2003)] is used in J-…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Specific Humidity Wind Stress Latent & sensible heat flux Ocean Surface FluxExperts contributing reviews
- N/A

Years of record
- to
"The OAFlux project aims to provide consistent, multi-decade, global analysis of air-sea heat, freshwater (evaporation), and momentum fluxes for use in studies…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Latent & sensible heat flux Radiation Wind Ocean SST - sea surface temperature Surface Flux wind stress curlExperts contributing reviews
- N/A

Years of record
- to
HadSST3 provides monthly SST anomalies on a 5°x5° grid for 1850-present. The anomalies are derived from a 30-year climatology spanning 1961-90.Coverage is global…
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Timestep
- Monthly
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Domain
- Global
Experts contributing reviews
- Kennedy, John

Years of record
- to
The COBE data set is a spatially complete, interpolated 1°x1° SST product for 1891 to present. It combines SSTs from ICOADS release 2.0, the Japanese Kobe…
Experts contributing reviews
- N/A

Years of record
- to
The NASA Team 2 (NT2) / SSMI data set of Arctic and Antarctic sea ice concentration is available at daily timesteps and 25km spatial resolution for 1992-2008.…
Experts contributing reviews
- N/A

Years of record
- to
ECMWF's current ocean reanalysis uses a sophisticated data assimilation methodology which includes a model bias correction. The ocean model used is forced by…
Main variables and Earth System components
Ocean Ocean Heat Content Salinity Sea Level potential temperature u, v current components-
Timestep
- Monthly
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Domain
- Global
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Collections
- Climate Analysis Section (CAS) Data Catalog
Experts contributing reviews
- N/A

Years of record
- to
GODAS is a real-time ocean analysis and a reanalysis. It is used for monitoring, retrospective analysis as well as for providing oceanic initial conditions for…
Main variables and Earth System components
Ocean 3D Velocity SST - sea surface temperature Salinity heat flux isothermal layer depth mixed layer depth potential temperature salt flux sea surface height-
Timestep
- Monthly, Pentad
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Domain
- Global
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Collections
- Climate Analysis Section (CAS) Data Catalog
Experts contributing reviews
- N/A