Ocean Observing and Climate Research Group
NOCS Flux Dataset
Reliable estimates of the air-sea fluxes of heat, freshwater and momentum are vital to improve our understanding of the coupled ocean-atmosphere system. A major element of our research is the development, evaluation and analysis of global air-sea flux datasets. The main product of this research to date is the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton (NOCS) flux dataset which has been used in a wide range of research projects worldwide.NOCS Flux Dataset v2.0 now available
Get more information and download data ...
A paper describing NOCS v2.0 has been published by the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. Berry, D.I., and E.C. Kent, 2009: A New Air-Sea Interaction Gridded Dataset from ICOADS With Uncertainty Estimates. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 90, 645-656.
The development of the flux climatology has been underpinned by research into errors in ship meteorological reports and the processes controlling air-sea interaction (particularly the wind stress). Details of our research in these areas, and of various analyses of the flux fields, can be found on the Surface Processes and the Climate sub-group pages.
The previous versions of the dataset (v1.1 & 1.1a) remain available as legacy products and can be downloaded via the links below
Note that the NOC1 climatology was previously referred to as the Southampton Oceanography Centre (SOC) flux climatology and was renamed when the SOC became the NOC. The SOC climatology existed in two versions: the 'Original' set of fields and an 'Adjusted' set in which closure of the ocean heat budget was achieved using inverse analysis. These have now become:
- NOC1.1 - Previously the 'Original' SOC climatology (climatological and individual monthly fields)
- NOC1.1a - Previously the 'Adjusted' SOC climatology (climatological monthly fields)
