These files are a subset of the World Ocean Atlas 1994, produced by Dr.
S. Levitus and T.P. Boyer at the Ocean Climate Laboratory, and distributed
on CD-ROMs by the National Oceanographic Data Center
(http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/).
  The files provided here are surface fields only, intended to be used for
calibration of seafloor data with the surface ocean climatology, and other
comparisons with paleoclimate data.  Much more extensive information (other
variables, other depth levels, observed data) are available on the CD-ROMS.
The files provided here are in ascii special format, an ASCII format
commonly requested and easily used.
 
  These files are all 1 degree x 1 degree data in ASCII Special format.

See File ascii_special.readme for more info on format.