UC San Diego

The resolution of existing satellite bathymetry was limited by the paucity and accuracy of the sounding used in its construction. A ongoing campaign to gather all unclassified soundings increased the number of sounding by an order of magnitude. Specialized software was written and used to edit more than 250 million soundings for accuracy. The result is a bathymetry gridded four times more finely than the current state of the art and is of general interest. The edited data was also used to make a global map of sea floor roughness that indicates significant amounts of deep ocean mixing may be occurring in unexpected locations; the Southern Ocean in particular