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 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 National Oceanography Centre (NOC) Version 2.0 Surface Flux and Meteorological Dataset is a monthly mean gridded dataset of marine surface measurements and…
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Formats
- netCDF
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Timestep
- Monthly
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Domain
- Global
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Collections
- Climate Data Record
Experts contributing reviews
- Kent, Elizabeth

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
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
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
-
Collections
- Diagnostic Data Sets, NCAR-DOE-CESM, oceandiagnostics
Experts contributing reviews
- N/A

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
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
-
Collections
- Climate Data Record
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
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
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 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
- 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
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
-
Collections
- Climate Analysis Section (CAS) Data Catalog
Experts contributing reviews
- N/A

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
"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 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
- 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