World Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE) (1990-2002)

The World Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE) was a part of the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP), which was established by WMO and ICSU, and was carried out in association with IOC and SCOR. WOCE had used resources from nearly 30 countries to make unprecedented in-situ and satellite observations of the global ocean between 1990 and 1998 and to observe poorly-understood but important physical processes.

As documented in the WOCE Science Plan (WCRP 1986), WOCE has two goals:-

• Goal 1: To develop models useful for predicting climate change and to collect the data necessary to test them.
• Goal 2: To determine the representativeness of the specific WOCE data sets for the long -term behaviour of the ocean, and to find methods for determining long-term changes in the ocean circulation.

After the field phase of the project from 1990 to 1998, Analysis, Interpretation, Modelling and Synthesis (AIMS) phase was followed until the end of 2002.

Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler Data Assembly Center

ADCP is an ocean research instrument to provide information on a structure of ocean current profile, and to be utilized in various ocean projects.
Japan Oceanographic Data Center (JODC) had co-hosted the WOCE Data Assembly Center for Shipboard Acoustic Doppler Current Profilers (SADCP) with the University of Hawaii Joint Archive for Shipboard ADCP (JASADCP), a collaboration between the US National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) and the Eric Firing ADCP Laboratory. The JASADCP had a responsibility for the acquisition, review, documentation, archival, and distribution of shipboard ADCP data sets.

JODC is holding about 4 million profiles of ADCP data as of 2009 including WOCE ADCP data. The data is available worldwide through the IOC/IODE system.

• What is the ADCP?
• Some results of ADCP observing and analyzing
• Access to ADCP database at JODC

WOCE Data Resources

WOCE Global Dataset Version 3.0

All results of the WOCE project were published as the DVD dataset named as "WOCE Global Data Resource Version 3.0" by US-NODC. Home page on WOCE Global Data Resources has been opened by UN-NODC at the following address, the all WOCE data is also available at this home page:
WOCE Global Data Resources: http://woce.nodc.noaa.gov/wdiu/

Electronic Atlas of WOCE Data (eWOCE)

For easy access and analysis, the data of most WOCE data streams have been compiled in integrated global or basin-wide datasets with the Ocean Data View (ODV) visualization software by Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, Bremerhaven, Germany as "Electronic Atlas of WOCE Data" (eWOCE). The eWOCE is available at the following address:
eWOCE: http://www.ewoce.org/

WOCE P2 Line Bottle Data Distribution Page (Last updated on 29 February 2000)

R/V Kaiyo-maru conducted hydrographic research along WHP-P2 line from 7 Jan, 1994 to 10 Feb, 1994. Data obtained by this cruise is available from this page

For any questions and comments, please contact us to the mail address to
jodc@jodc.gp.jp

Updated : November 6, 2009