Hosted by "1PLs Agency"

Marine Data Literacy

Proudly published in the United States of America for environmental scientists around the world.  Providing instruction for managing, converting, analyzing and displaying oceanographic station data, marine meteorological data, GIS-compatible marine and coastal data, and mapped remote sensing imagery

Up
3.1 WOD Data
3.2 WOD Metadata
3.3 WOA Stations
3.4 WOA Products
3.5 WOOD Secchi
3.6 OBIS Taxon
3.7 OBIS Area
3.8 Transmissometry
3.9 PANGAEA

Home > 3. Principal Archives > 3.3 WOA Stations

3.3 Managing Synthetic Ocean Station Data from the World Ocean Atlas

  • Exercise Title:  Managing Synthetic Ocean Station Data from the World Ocean Atlas

  • Abstract:  The World Ocean Atlas 2009 is a global analysis of the World Ocean Database measurements, usually given in the form of gridded parameter surfaces.  In this exercise you will work with the WOA in the form of artificial ocean stations that can be compared to actual data for quality control purposes and the preparation of other special products.  This special collection is one of a number of special ODV-formatted resources at the main ODV website.

  • Preliminary Reading (in OceanTeacher, unless otherwise indicated):

  • Required Software:

  • Other Resources: 

    • World Ocean Atlas 2009 - Special Ocean Data View collection (created by the authors of Ocean Data View) from the WOA, taking the form of artificial ocean stations

  • Author:  Murray Brown

  • Version:  December 2010

1.  Visit and read about the World Ocean Atlas 2009 specially-formatted collection, above.  Then download the annual average zipfile to the folder DATA > OCEAN > WOD&WOA.
  • We only have time in this exercise to work with the annual average.
  • In actual practice, you would probably use the seasonal or monthly average climatologies
  • The zipfile contains an already-prepared Ocean Data View collection, so all you need to do is unzip it and open it in ODV.
2.  Extract (unzip) the annual average zipfile in place.
3.  Navigate to DATA > OCEAN > WOD&WOA > WOA09 > HYDROGRAPHY > ANNUAL and open the file WOA09_Annual.odv.  If ODV is already installed, then you'll see this collection map.

[You may need to select VIEW > LAYOUT TEMPLATES > FULL SCREEN MAP to see this exact view]

4.  The global map is completely covered with blue dots, so the WOA collection is huge.  To reduce its size, right-click on the station map and select STATION SELECTION CRITERIA.
5.  On the DOMAIN tab, enter the coordinates of the Liberia area of interest, and click OK.
6.  This reduces the enter collection to a much smaller set of "stations".
7.  Select EXPORT > ODV COLLECTION
8.  In the same location as the global collection, enter the name analyses_annu_liberia_woa09_odvpage (odv will be automatically added) and click SAVE.
9.  This screen allows you to save the main analyzed parameter values, plus various other statistics.  Select only the main parameters (at the top), and click OK.
10.  You now have  a special Liberia collection from the World Ocean Atlas 2009.
11. NOTE:  The next five optional panels create a special northwest Atlantic collection for use in a separate exercise on the method to delineate an major ocean current.  You can skip over the optional panels if you don't intend to perform that separate exercise.
12.  OPTION:  Go back to the STATION SELECTION CRITERIA and click MAP DOMAIN and OK to display all the global stations in ODV.
13.  OPTION:  Go back to the STATION SELECTION CRITERIA and click ZOOM.
14.  OPTION:  Manually zoom the area down to the approximate area shown here (the northwest Atlantic).  Then double-click on the red rectangle
15.  OPTION:  You should have these stations showing now.
16.  OPTION:  As you did above, save this special collection in the same folder with the name analyses_annu_nwatl_woa09_odvpages (odv will be automatically added)
17.  Now you can close the global collection.  Open the Liberia collection.
18.  Select VIEW > LAYOUT TEMPLATES > 6 SCATTER WINDOWS to see this exact view.  It's obvious that these analyses can be extremely useful for quality control work with individual cruises and stations from the World Ocean Database, or from your own archives of station data.

You can set up all sorts of visual comparisons, using dual instances of Ocean Data View (i.e. the WOA data and real station data open in separate ODV windows).

19.  You can close these special collections, or use them right now for special analyses.
The exercises, notes and graphics in this website are copyrighted, and may not be copied or abstracted in any way, without my explicit permission (in writing).  Making one copy for your personal use is allowed.   Please report any copyright infringement to me. Murray Brown m.brown.nsb <at> gmail.com