World Ocean Circulation Experiment

The World Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE) is an oceanographic project that was carried out from 1990 to 2002. It took place as part of the Integrated Global Observing Strategy .

execution

A total of 30 countries were involved in WOCE. In Germany, under the leadership of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research , the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the Federal Ministry of Education and Research as well as various universities were actively involved.

At WOCE, floating buoys were used to collect data, a principle that is continued in the Argo program .

aims

WOCE should research:

• Interactions between the oceans and the global climate
• Monitoring possibilities for long-term interactions between the behavior of the oceans and the climate
• long-term influences of the oceans on the global climate

Results

As a result, extensive data on global water transport such as B. won via the paths of the Gulf Stream . The results (salinity, temperatures, nutrient or trace substance concentrations in the oceans) were processed by the Alfred Wegener Institute and are freely available.

Web links

• Overview , PDF (19MB)
• Archive of WOCE data at the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC, USA)
• Electronic atlas of the WOCE data at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research , Bremerhaven
• WOCE page ( Memento of 17 April 2009 at the Internet Archive ) of the National Oceanography Center (Southampton, UK)
• Searchable WOCE data, archived in the information system PANGEA