Southern Ocean Hydrographic Station Data and Gridded Analyses

Over 6000 individual hydrographic station records from the Southern Ocean, assembled from the NODC archive by researchers from Columbia University, Science Applications Inc., and Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory. The dataset includes interpolated data on a uniform grid at 47 depth levels. It was published in the late 1970s, with the underlying atlas released by Columbia University Press.

Use Cases

• Analyze vertical profiles of temperature and salinity from over 6000 stations to identify water masses.
• Map the spatial distribution of nutrients like silicate, phosphate, and nitrate across the Southern Ocean.
• Study correlations between oxygen concentration and sigma-t (density) at 47 depth levels.
• Use the uniformly gridded data products for basin-scale comparisons or model initialization.

Strengths

• Contains over 6000 individual station records.
• Includes seven key oceanographic variables: temperature, salinity, sigma-t, silicate, oxygen, phosphate, and nitrate.
• Provides both raw station data and a derived product interpolated to a uniform grid at 47 depth levels.

Limitations

• Data is temporally stale, with a last updated date of 1975, missing modern observations.
• The sample size of over 6000 stations may be sparse for high-resolution analysis of the vast Southern Ocean.
• Limited metadata is provided regarding data collection methods and quality control for individual stations.

Provenance

Source

National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) archive, processed by Gordon, Molinelli, and Baker.

Collection Method

Assembled from high-quality station data archived at the NODC and interpolated to a uniform grid.

Freshness

1975-12-31

Geography

Southern Ocean