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EN4 quality controlled ocean data: Download EN4.0.2 with (updated) bias adjustments from Levitus et al. (2009)

Important information about this dataset:

Please be warned that owing to an error the Argo greylist was not applied to these data.

Please note that only profile data are available at the current time.

Contact us if you have a requirement for analyses created using bias adjusted data.

Download profiles

These zip files each contain monthly files of the profile data with quality information.

1900s 1910s 1920s
1930s 1940s 1950s
1960s 1970s 1980s
1990s 2000s 2010s

Help with downloading

Use the links on the left to download the EN4 dataset a year at a time. Only available for download are files containing profiles.

If you require the whole dataset one way to do this is to use wget. To do this download the file below (and edit it if not all files are required).
EN.4.0.2_Profiles_l09_download_list.txt

Assuming that you are in the directory into which the data are to be copied and that the downloaded file is also in that directory, the download can then be initiated by typing at the command line:
wget -i EN.4.0.2_Profiles_l09_download_list.txt

Note: the above method was written for Linux systems but should also be applicable to other operating systems with wget installed.

File naming convention

We use a standardised file naming convention:

dataset.X.Y.Z.θ.type.[E.]date.extension

The sections of the file name are:

datasetThis is 'EN' for the EN4 dataset
XThe major dataset number (set to 4 for EN4)
YVersion number that is incremented when there is a major change to the methodology used to construct the dataset
ZVersion number that is incremented when there is a minor change to the dataset
θFor EN4 this is set to 'p' if the file is a preliminary version or 'f' if the data file has been finalised
typeEither 'profiles' if the file contains profile data or 'analysis' if the file contains an objective analysis
EIf present this indicates that time varying bias adjustments were applied to the data and the source of the bias adjustments
dateThe date in the form YYYYMM (YYYY = year, MM = month)
extensionIndicates the file type - this is 'nc' (NetCDF) for all EN4 files

File formats

The data files are stored in zip files. These can be unpacked using standard utilities such as unzip on Linux systems. The data files themselves are in NetCDF classic format (sometimes referred to as NetCDF3 files). The contents of these are summarised in the profile file format page.

References

If using the data in a publication, please cite

Good, S. A., M. J. Martin and N. A. Rayner, 2013. EN4: quality controlled ocean temperature and salinity profiles and monthly objective analyses with uncertainty estimates, Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 118, 6704-6716, doi:10.1002/2013JC009067

Where appropriate please also acknowledge the data sources used to create EN4.

The reference for the bias adjustments is

Levitus, S., J. I. Antonov, T. P. Boyer, R. A. Locarnini, H. E. Garcia and A. V. Mishonov, 2009. Global ocean heat content 1955-2008 in light of recently revealed instrumentation problems, 36, L07608, doi:10.1029/2008GL037155

Updates

This dataset is updated periodically. Please contact us to request an update.

Changes compared to EN.4.0.1

The main changes compared to the previous version of the dataset are:

  • A fresh download of the source data performed in December 2013.
  • Following feedback from users about problems with the data in the Black Sea, the climatology for the Black Sea and Caspian Sea was updated using the WOA09.
  • Following feedback from a user about erroneous data, all observations with latitude and longitude of exactly 0 degrees are rejected.


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