International Quality Controlled Ocean Database version 0.1
Original (non-English) name
Acronym
IQuOD v0.1
Citation
The IQuOD Team (2018). International Quality Controlled Ocean Database (IQuOD) version 0.1 - aggregated and community quality controlled ocean profile data 1772-2018 (NCEI Accession 0170893). Version 1.1. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information. Dataset. [access date]
Abstract
Advancing our understanding of climate variability and change and associated socio-economic and environmental impacts demands unbiased climate data of the highest quality, consistency, and completeness. Long-term historical records are critical to place modern ocean properties in context with the past and to separate the influence of anthropogenic drivers of change from the modes of natural climate variability.
Subsurface ocean temperature and salinity are two of the Essential Climate Variables which provide a direct window into changes in the Earth's planetary heat balance, water cycle, and sea level. Furthermore, subsurface ocean observations are widely used to evaluate and initialize model simulations and are also assimilated into ocean and climate models. Well quantified observed changes are essential to guide the interpretation of projected future changes to the Earth’s climate.
One of today’s big challenges is the need to maximize the full potential of an irreplaceable collection of tens of millions of historical temperature profiles – collected since 1772 and worth tens of billions of dollars – and apply it to a vast range of climate-related research, applications and services. Despite independent efforts over the past few decades by a number of research organizations who have attempted to assemble, rescue, and quality control (QC) subsurface ocean profiles, the global historical profile database still contains a relatively large fraction of biased, duplicated, and substandard quality data and metadata that can confound climate-related applications.
The IQuOD (International Quality-controlled Ocean Database) effort is being organized by the oceanographic community and includes experts in data quality and management, climate modelers and the broader climate-related community. The primary focus of IQuOD is to produce and freely distribute the highest quality and complete single ocean profile repository along with (intelligent) metadata and assigned uncertainties for use in ocean climate research applications. This goal will be achieved by developing and implementing an internationally-agreed framework.