NOAA Global Ocean Heat Content
The Ocean Heat Content Climate Data Record (CDR) provides long-term global and regional time series of ocean heat content anomalies (OHCA) from 1955 to the present. It includes subsurface heat content changes at multiple depth layers for the global ocean and the major basins including the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian, separated by hemisphere. Since the ocean stores over 90% of the excess heat in the Earth system, these data are key for tracking global warming and climate-related ocean changes.
Dataset details:
The record is produced by the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) using in situ temperature and salinity profiles from the World Ocean Database. Observations are uniformly formatted, quality controlled, and compared to the World Ocean Atlas climatology to calculate anomalies at specific depth levels. Statistical reconstruction methods are applied to fill spatial and temporal gaps, providing consistent estimates of subsurface ocean conditions. The dataset includes 3 monthly, annual, and five year (pentadal) time series of heat content, temperature, and salinity anomalies, as well as derived thermosteric, halosteric, and total steric sea level anomalies.
| Collection type | Static |
| Temporal coverage | 1955-2025 |
| Access interfaces | S3 cloud access, STAC (available soon) |
| Path to repository | s3://eodata/auxdata/external/noaa-cdr-ocean-heat-content-netcdf/ |
| Product count | 22 |
| Size | 830 MB |
| Satellite data used | Not specified |
| Data Type | Ocean Heat Content Time-Series Data |
| Processing Level | L4 |
| File Format | NetCDF (.nc) |
| Spatial Resolution | Approx. 1.00° (≈111 km at equator) |
| Coordinate Reference System | EPSG:4326 |
| Spatial coverage | Global |
| License | NOAA CDR Ocean Heat Content Use Agreement |