IBCAO Arctic Bathymetry

Description

The International Bathymetric Chart of the Arctic Ocean (IBCAO) is a digital data base that contains all available bathymetric data north of 64 degrees North. This project, which began in 1997, is a cooperative effort between researchers at eleven different institutions in eight countries. The countries involved are Canada, Denmark, Germany, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and the USA. Five of the key organizations involved were the International Arctic Science Committee (IASC), the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC), the US National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC/NOAA), and the US Office of Naval Research (ONR).

A beta version of the IBCAO grid was released in 2000 and has been included on the RiverTools sample data CD. The grid has 2323 rows and 2323 columns, with a grid spacing of 2500 meters along both axes. It uses a polar stereographic projection with true scale at 75 degrees North, and the WGS 84 horizontal datum. Elevation values are stored as 4-byte floating point numbers with units of meters. The grid is available in both gridded ASCII and GMT/netCDF formats. A geographic version of the IBCAO beta grid with 2.5-minute (150 arcseconds) grid spacing will be available in 2001.

For more information, see the following paper:

Jackobsson, M., N.Z. Cherkis, J. Woodward, R. Macnab, and B. Coakley. New grid of Arctic bathymetry aids scientists and mapmakers; Eos, Transactions, American Geophysical Union, 81(9), February 29, 2000.

Data Source

Word Data Center for Marine Geology and Geophysics (WDC MGG) of the National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC) of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

Data Availability

The IBCAO beta grid can be downloaded free of charge from the web site below.

Web Site

IBCAO Home: http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/bathymetry/arctic/arctic.html

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