| Summary: | The Northwest Atlantic (NWA) plays a crucial role in long-term earth and ocean climate change. The Gulf Stream and North Atlantic Current System are the key elements of northward heat transport and Meridional Overturning Circulation in the Atlantic Ocean. The NWA is a resource-rich coastal zone with abundant fisheries and other material resources. Its economic significance and climatic importance called forth intensive observational and research programs spanning over many decades. To provide an improved oceanographic foundation and reference for multi-disciplinary studies of the NWA, NCEI Regional Climatology Team developed a new set of high-resolution quality-controlled long-term annual, seasonal and monthly mean temperature and salinity fields on different depth levels. This new regional climatology is based on the World Ocean Database archive of temperature and salinity from observations spanning over more than a hundred years and incorporates a great deal of new data not previously available. The NWA high-resolution regional climatology is a part of the NOAA-wide Sustaining Marine Ecosystems in a Changing Climate (SMECC) Project.
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