[1] We provide updated estimates of the change of ocean heat content and the thermosteric component of sea level change of the 0-700 and 0-2000 m layers of the World Ocean for 1955-2010. Our estimates are based on historical data not previously available, additional modern data, and bathythermograph data corrected for instrumental biases. We have also used Argo data corrected by the Argo DAC if available and used uncorrected Argo data if no corrections were available at the time we downloaded the Argo data.

We provide estimates of the warming of the world ocean for 1955–2008 based on historical data not previously available, additional modern data, correcting for instrumental biases of bathythermograph data, and correcting or excluding some Argo float data. The strong interdecadal variability of global ocean heat content reported previously by us is reduced in magnitude but the linear trend in ocean heat content remain similar to our earlier estimate.

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The World Ocean Database (WOD) is the most comprehensive global ocean profile-plankton database available internationally without restriction. All data are in one well-documented format and are available both on DVDs for a minimal charge and on-line without charge. The latest DVD version of the WOD is the World Ocean Database 2009 (WOD09). All data in the WOD are associated with as much metadata as possible, and every ocean data value has a quality control flag associated with it. The WOD is a product of the U.S. National Oceanographic Data Center and its co-located World Data Center for Oceanography. However, the WOD exists because of the international oceanographic data exchange that has occurred under the auspices of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) and the International Council of Science (ICSU) World Data Center (WDC) system. World Data Centers are part of the ICSU World Data System.

Since 1982, the Levitus Climatological Atlas of the World's Ocean and each succeeding World Ocean Atlas have been used to provide initial and boundary conditions for modeling studies, as well as baselines for climate studies. However, there has been a broadening demand for ocean modeling on spatial scales finer than 1‐degree resolution [e.g., Penduff et al., 2010]. Likewise, vertical resolution for isobaric coordinate models is important for realistic representation of ocean processes [Wang et al., 2008].