Objective analyses of annual, seasonal, and monthly temperature and salinity for the World Ocean on a 0.25° grid

Abstract Objectively analysed climatological mean fields of temperature and salinity have been calculated on a 0.25° grid for the World Ocean for the annual, seasonal, and monthly compositing periods using data from the World Ocean Database 2001 . The annual and seasonal fields are calculated at standard levels from the surface to 5500 m. The monthly fields are calculated at standard levels from the surface to 1500 m. In comparison with similarly computed climatologies calculated on a 1° grid, ocean circulation features, such as the Gulf of Mexico Loop Current, are more clearly represented. The new 0.25° climatologies preserve most of the spatial resolution of earlier 0.25° temperature and salinity climatologies, while reducing noise by additional smoothing in horizontal space (geographically at each depth), vertically (along depth at each grid), as well as in time (Fourier filtering). Copyright © 2005 Royal Meteorological Society