WOCE Works the Web

The World Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE) is the part of the World Climate Research Programme that will provide improvements in ocean circulation models for use in climate prediction. The oceans are a key element in the climate system in the way they transport heat and fresh water and exchange them with the atmosphere. WOCE used resources from 25 countries to make in-situ and satellite observations of the global ocean between 1990 and 1997 and to observe poorly-understood but important physical processes. In parallel, great advances have been made during WOCE in the ability of ocean models to reproduce the known characteristics of the ocean and its circulation.

Figure 1: The WOCE Hydrographic Survey Grid

Dissemination of information and data is a priority for WOCE and until recently the main route for rapid distribution had been through paper documents (reports, newsletters, summaries) and an online information system (Oceanic). Over the last couple of years the expansion of the World Wide Web has enabled WOCE information and data to be made available to a much wider audience, including those outside of the scientific community.

Just as importantly it has allowed the continually changing information to be kept up-to-date and distributed in a huge variety of forms. All WOCE Data Centres now have active Web sites and the majority provide access to data and products through their sites. The ipo and the Data Information Unit provide details of all aspects of the programme ranging from field work summaries, to investigators' contact addresses, meeting and conference information and a bibliography of WOCE publications.

The caveat to this is that the Web is not truly global, and can be slow and difficult to access for many people. WOCE remains committed to disseminating data and information on alternative media such as paper documents and cd-roms. A set of cd-roms containing Version 1.0 of the WOCE Global Data was recently produced and distributed at the 1998 WOCE Conference "Ocean Circulation and Climate" held in Halifax, Canada in May 1998. Please contact the WOCE ipo for details of how you may obtain a set of the cd-roms (woceipo@soc.soton.ac.uk).