DODS Access

About DODS Access

The Distributed Oceanographic Data Systems (DODS) is a framework for data providers to share data with each other and with end users. The main underlying protocol for data delivery is based on an Open Source Project for a Network Data Access Protocol (OPeNDAP). As a data provider, NDBC has implemented DODS using the Thematic Real-time Environmental Distributed Data Services (THREDDS), which support OPeNDAP and HTTP protocols. The Unidata's Network Common Data Form (NetCDF) is used to serve the datasets. We have followed the NetCDF CF Metadata Conventions as much as possible.

Access the NDBC and Partners Data

The data are in subdirectories by type, then by station within each type. The data types are listed below. Both historical and "real-time" data are available in collections in the station folders. The collections are in separate files for each year of historical data, plus a file for the latest "real-time" data. The file naming convention is SSSSStYYYY.nc, where SSSSS will have the station's ID, t will be the data type, YYYY will be the year of the historical data or 9999 for the latest "real-time" data, and .nc indicates it is a netCDF file. The "real-time" data have not undergone NDBC's final archival quality processing. The term "real-time" is used to be consistent with the labels used on NDBC's main web site. The "real-time" files will contain up to 45 days of the latest data, to provide a continuous time series when coupled with the current year's historical data. Upon each month's final monthly archival quality processing, that month of historical data will be added to the current year file and removed from the 9999 file. There will be no overlaps.

The station folders are groupped under the following data type directories:

• adcp - Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler data
• adcp2 - Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler data with additional QC information
• cwind - Continuous Winds data
• dart - Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis data
• mmbcur - Marsh-McBirney Current Measurements data
• ocean - Oceanographic data
• pwind - Peak Winds data
• stdmet- Standard Meteorological data
• swden - Spectral Wave Density data with Spectral Wave Direction data
• wlevel - Water Level data

Access the NDBC TAO Buoy Data

In addition, a special folder oceansites holds the top level directories for the Global Data Assembly Center (GDAC) of OceanSITES. The data files are provided by the member institutions of OceanSITES and are organized under site subdirectories. They follow the OceanSITES format specifications in addtion to the NetCDF CF Metadata Conventions. In particular, the NDBC TAO Buoy Data in the GDAC are the NDBC's contributions to OceanSITES. For more information visit OceanSITES Project Office.

Access the NDBC TAO CTD Data

The NDBC TAO service cruises collect CTD data at certain locations. The folder tao-ctd holds the CTD data which are organized by cruise IDs in the subdirectories.

Access the NDBC HF Radar Data

High Frequency (HF) Radar measures ocean surface current speeds and directions in various nearshore areas. These gridded data are organized by region and resolution in the HF Radar Surface Current Data folder. These data are aggregated over a four day period. Users may also access the individual hourly HF Radar data files.

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