A set of mean fields for temperature and salinity for the Arctic Seas and environs are available for viewing and downloading.

Area: The area encompassed is all longitudes from 60°N to 90°N latitudes.

Horizontal resolution: Temperature and salinity are available on a 1°x1° and a 1/4°x1/4° latitude/longitude grid.

Time resolution: All climatologies for all variables use all available data regardless of year of measurement. Climatologies were calculated for annual (all-data), seasonal, and monthly time periods. Seasons are as follows: Winter (Jan.-Mar.), Spring (Apr.-Jun.), Summer (Jul.-Aug.), Fall (Oct.-Dec.).

Vertical resolution: Temperature and salinity are available on 87 standard levels with higher vertical resolution than the World Ocean Atlas 2009 (WOA09), but levels extend from the surface to 4000 m.

Units: Temperature units are °C. Salinity is unitless on the Practical Salinity Scale-1978 [PSS].

Data used: All data from the area found in the World Ocean Database (WOD) as of the end of 2011. For a description of this dataset, please see World Ocean Database 2009 IntroductionMethod: The method followed for calculation of the mean climatological fields is detailed in the following publications:

Temperature: Locarnini et al., 2010, Salinity: Antonov et al., 2010. Additional details on the 1/4° climatological calculation are found in Boyer et al., 2005, from: <a href="http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/regional_climate/arctic/" target="_blank">NOAA</a>

Reference:

Boyer, T.P., O.K. Baranova, M. Biddle, D.R. Johnson, A.V. Mishonov, C. Paver, D. Seidov and M. Zweng (2012), Arctic Regional Climatology, Regional Climatology Team, NOAA/NODC, source: <a href="www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/regional_climate/arctic" target="_blank">NOAA</a>