BlueLink Ocean Archive

Updated: 2008-05-02

BOA is the result of collecting together the majority of global high-quality buoy and shipboard deepwater hydrographic cast data. It is built on the NOAA/NODC World Ocean Database (BOA06 uses WOD01), WOCE WHP3, Argo, TAO, CSIRO and NIWA archives, and a number of other sources. The component datasets of BOA are stored separately in a range of formats since the nature of these datasets is quite varied. This approach allows easy updating of components (for example, the Argo subset is completely renewed every couple of months.) Where the same data could reside in multiple datasets, those datasets are duplicate cross-checked after any updates (scanning only on the basis of time and location, not the enormous task of searching for duplicated property profiles.). BOA is available in a packaged form of one netCDF file per property (created in July 2006.) Neutral density profiles are also computed and stored in file gamma_BOA06.nc. These files are available via an OpenDAP server and for internal use as local netCDF files.