1855-1993 monthly and annual mean seawater temperature, salinity, and density measurements from 26 tide gauge sites along the U.S. coast. The dataset was compiled by NOAA's National Ocean Service from primary tide gauge records, with digitization and quality control performed by students at the Florida Institute of Technology. It captures low-frequency changes in coastal ocean conditions throughout the 20th century.
Use Cases
- Analyze long-term trends in seawater temperature across 26 coastal sites to study climate change impacts.
- Model relationships between salinity and density measurements to understand coastal water mass formation.
- Validate climate model outputs for coastal regions using the century-spanning time-series data.
- Study spatial variability in annual mean temperature and density across the U.S. coastline.
Strengths
- Covers a 138-year time range from 1855 to 1993.
- Includes data from 26 distinct coastal monitoring sites.
- Provides monthly and annual aggregated means for consistent temporal analysis.
Limitations
- Data collection ended in 1993, making it temporally stale for contemporary analysis.
- Limited to 26 sites, offering incomplete spatial coverage of the U.S. coastline.
- The description notes more paper records may exist but are not digitized, indicating potential data gaps.
Provenance
- Source
- NOAA National Ocean Service (formerly U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey).
- Collection Method
- Routine manual measurements at primary tide gauges, later digitized and quality-controlled.
- Time Range
- 1855 to 1993.
- Freshness
- null
- Geography
- Coastal United States (26 tide gauge sites).