In this project the PI will expand and complete a global hydrographic ocean climatology product, begun in collaboration with other scientists over the last several years. The product is documented in the HydroBase software package, which will consist of three components: 1. A quality controlled database of pre WOCE (World Ocean Circulation Experiment) data based on both water samples and electronically measured temperature and salinity profiles, 2. Three dimensional gridded fields of annual and monthly averaged properties, and, 3. A set of software utilities that will permit users to extract subsets of data and analyze them as a function of space and time. The most important distinguishing feature of this climatology is its implementation of isopycnal averaging, which would substantially improve previous, similar atlases (World Ocean Atlas WOA94). The use of this data base has already received endorsements from members of the oceanographic community.
