World Ocean Atlas
The following downloads the 2013 version of the World Ocean Atlas, in both 1-degree and 5-degree versions. Note that this downloads over 1Gb of data, and can take several minutes. Consult the documentation for individual functions for more examples.
library(dc)
for (field in c("temperature", "salinity", "oxygen", "silicate",
"phosphate", "nitrate", "density")) {
dc.woa(field=field, res=1)
dc.woa(field=field, res=5)
}