Global

Bathymetry and Elevation

The General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans (GEBCO) One Minute Grid is a global terrain model for land and sea at one arc-minute intervals. The grid is largely based on the bathymetric contours contained in the Centenary Edition of the GEBCO Digital Atlas, existing grids are used in some areas. The land areas are based on the Global Land One-km Base Elevation (GLOBE) Project data set. The grid was originally released in 2003 and updated in 2008 to include data from the International Bathymetric Chart of the Arctic Ocean (IBCAO), for the region north of 64N and also updates for shallower water regions off India, the Korean Peninsula and around South Afriaca, using data extracted from Electronic Navigation Charts (ENCs). The grid is available to download, in netCDF format, for free from the internet. Free software is available for viewing and accessing data from the grid in netCDF and ASCII. This includes an option to export the grid in an ASCII form suitable for conversion to an ESRI raster. The grid is also included in the GEBCO Digital Atlas DVD. It is not intended to make any further updates to this data set. In 2009, GEBCO released a new bathymetric grid, the GEBCO_08 Grid. This is a global terrain model at 30 arc-second intervals. It is largely based on a database of ship-track soundings with interpolation between soundings guided by satellite derived-gravity data.

GEBCO (2008) GEBCO One Minute Grid, Pauline Weatherall

British Oceanographic Data Centre
Joseph Proudman Building 6 Brownlow Street
Liverpool
Merseyside
L3 5DA
United Kingdom