Global Oceanographic Data Archaeology and Rescue (GODAR) and World Ocean Database Projects

Since its inception in 1993 as an IOC project, the Global Oceanographic Data Archaeology and Rescue (GODAR) Project continues its progress in locating, collecting, quality controlling, and disseminating in electronic form, historical ocean profile and plankton data that are at risk of loss due to media decay. Only data for the pre-1992 period are considered to be “historical” data for the purposes of the GODAR project. Since its inception in 2001 the IOC World Ocean Database (WOD) Project continues adding new data types, e.g., temperature and salinity from Gliders and variables, e.g., tracers such as freons as well as archiving standard oceanographic data. Special attention has been paid to the speed of transfer of modern data into integrated, comprehensive oceanographic databases for research, monitoring or establishment of quality control for oceanographic data on local, regional and global scales to support research and realtime analysis of data. All data received as part of the GODAR and WOD projects are now made available online every three months at www.nodc.noaa.gov.

Supported by IOC/IODE

Document available in English

World ocean database