GEBCO_08 Grid

The General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans (GEBCO) consists of an international group ofexperts who work on the development of a range of bathymetric data sets and products. GEBCO operates under thejoint auspices of the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) and the Intergovernmental OceanographicCommission (IOC) of UNESCO. See our web site for more information about GEBCO www.gebco.net.The GEBCO_08 Grid is a global grid of elevation data at 30 arc-second intervals. This data set is availableas a Web Map Service (WMS) for use as imagery in your applications. The bathymetric portion of the gridwas largely generated from a database of ship-track soundings with interpolation between soundings guided bysatellite-derived gravity data. However, in areas where they improve on the existing GEBCO_08 Grid, datasets generated by other methods have been included. Further information can be found in the documentation thataccompanies the data set and is available from www.gebco.net.Within the GEBCO_08 grid land elevation data is taken from the 30 arc-second version of the Shuttle Radar TopographyMission data set (SRTM30). The imagery for land areas in this WMS, north of 60 degrees south, is largely taken fromthe NASA Blue Marble: Next Generation data set, produced by Reto Stockli, NASA Earth Observatory, the NASA GoddardSpace Flight Center (http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/BlueMarble). For land areas south of 60 degrees south,coastline and ice shelf information is taken from the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) AntarcticDigital Database coastline dataset (http://www.add.scar.org:8080/add/).Information on how to download the GEBCO_08 can be found at www.gebco.net.Please note that the GEBCO_08 Grid is mainly a deeper water data set and does not contain detailed bathymetry inshallower water areas.This WMS has been developed by the British Oceanographic Data Centre (BODC) on behalf of the GEBCO community.