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

Years of record
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The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperatures (BEST) are a set of data products, originally a gridded reconstruction of land surface air temperature records spanning…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Air Temperature Maximum Air Temperature Minimum Air Temperature Ocean SST - sea surface temperatureExperts contributing reviews
- Cowtan, Kevin

Years of record
- to
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 World Ocean Atlas (WOA) is a set of climatological mean, gridded fields of oceanographic variables based on in-situ measurements from a wide variety of…
Main variables and Earth System components
Ocean Dissolved Oxygen SST - sea surface temperature Sub Surface Salinity Sub Surface Temperature Sub-surface data phosphate potential temperature silicate-
Timestep
- Climatology, Monthly, Seasonal
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Domain
- Global
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Collections
- Diagnostic Data Sets, NCAR-DOE-CESM, oceandiagnostics
Experts contributing reviews
- Mishonov, Alexey

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 potential temperature Sub Surface Salinity Sub Surface Temperature Sub-surface dataExperts contributing reviews
- Killick, Rachel

Years of record
- N/A
Coral records are one of the main types of high-resolution (annual to sub-annual) paleoclimate proxies, providing timeseries of environmental conditions reaching…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Evaporation Evaporation-Precipitation Precipitation Ocean Salinity SST - sea surface temperature-
Formats
- ascii | HTML Table | Linked Paleo Data (LiPD) | Matlab
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Timestep
- N/A
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Domain
- Atlantic Ocean, Indian Ocean, Pacific Ocean, Tropics
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Collections
- N/A
Experts contributing reviews
- Lawman, Allison

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 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

Years of record
- 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 Salinity SST - sea surface temperature Sub Surface TemperatureExperts contributing reviews
- Atkinson, Chris

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
- 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
There are several indices used to monitor the tropical Pacific, all of which are based on sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies averaged across a given region…
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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
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
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 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 Southern Ocean State Estimate (SOSE) is a model-generated best fit to Southern Ocean observations. As such, it provides a quantitatively useful climatology…
Main variables and Earth System components
Ocean 3D Velocity Bottom pressure SST - sea surface temperature Salinity Sub Surface Temperature mixed layer depth sea surface height u, v current components Wind Stress-
Formats
- binary
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Timestep
- Daily, Monthly, Weekly, Annual
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Collections
- N/A
Experts contributing reviews
- Mazloff, Matthew

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

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
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

Years of record
- to
The Pan-Arctic Ice-Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS) is a reanalysis data set that uses a coupled ice and ocean model to provide daily and monthly…
Experts contributing reviews
- Labe, Zachary

Years of record
- to
"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
- 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 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
- to
A regularly updated monthly timeseries of ocean heat content, based on Argo profiles, is integrated over 10-1500m depth and the latitudes 60°S-60°N. Coverage…
Experts contributing reviews
- von Schuckmann, Karina

Years of record
- to
The Tropical Ocean Global Atmosphere program (TOGA) is a component of the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) aimed specifically at the prediction of climate…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Air Temperature Precipitation Radiation Relative Humidity Sea Level Pressure Wind Ocean Absolute Dynamic Topography (ADT) Ocean Heat Content SST - sea surface temperature Salinity Sub Surface Salinity Sub Surface Temperature u, v current componentsExperts contributing reviews
- N/A

Years of record
- to
"The Rapid Climate Change programme (RAPID) explores what causes rapid switches in climate, with a main (but not exclusive) focus on the Atlantic Ocean's…
Main variables and Earth System components
Ocean Salinity Sub Surface Temperature heat flux streamfunction-
Timestep
- Sub-daily
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Domain
- Atlantic Ocean
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Collections
- Diagnostic Data Sets
Experts contributing reviews
- N/A

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