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Full catalog/BATHYMETRY
BATHYMETRY·dataset

High-resolution seafloor depth maps, US waters (NOAA)

NOAA National Bathymetric Source Data
ocean NOAA NOAA active
In plain English

What it measures. Maps the depth and shape of the ocean floor by stitching together the best available survey data, including how confident each depth value is.

How it's made. Compiled by NOAA's National Bathymetric Source project from ship sonar surveys and airborne laser (lidar) data, with deep-water gaps filled from a global seafloor model.

How & where you'd use it. Feeds next-generation nautical charts and supports coastal modelling, science, and industry; note the files themselves are not for navigation.

What's measured

aws-pdsearth observationmodeloceansbathymetrymarine navigation

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span— → ongoing

What you can do with it

  • Watch sea-surface temperature and marine heatwaves
  • Spot algal blooms and ocean-colour shifts
  • Support fisheries and coastal monitoring
Official description

The National Bathymetric Source (NBS) project creates and maintains high-resolution bathymetry composed of the best available data. This project enables the creation of next-generation nautical charts while also providing support for modeling, industry, science, regulation, and public curiosity. Primary sources of bathymetry include NOAA and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers hydrographic surveys and topographic bathymetric (topo-bathy) lidar (light detection and ranging) data. Data submitted through the NOAA Office of Coast Survey’s external source data process are also included, with gaps in deep water filled through Global Multi-Resolution Topography, a merged model of bathymetry. Different vertical datums and file formats are made available to meet various uses. The BlueTopo folder includes multilayer floating point GeoTIFFs with associated Raster Attribute Tables (RAT) containing elevation, vertical uncertainty, with other quality metrics and source information. These files are arranged in a spatial tiling and resolution scheme corresponding to the Electronic Navigational Chart (ENC) but are not for navigation due to the inclusion of additional non-navigation data and non-navigation vertical datums. For navigational datasets please see the S-102 distribution portal. "nowCOAST" provides public access to BlueTopo through the nowCOAST viewer, web map tile services (WMTS), and links to individual datasets.

Get the data

noaa_access.py
# NOAA Open Data on AWS — public S3, no login
import s3fs

fs = s3fs.S3FileSystem(anon=True)
# find this dataset's bucket in the docs link in the sidebar, then:
# files = fs.ls("noaa-<bucket>/...")
# open NetCDF/GRIB with xarray, COGs with rioxarray
NOAA Open Data is on public AWS S3 — no login at all (anonymous access).