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Building Global Ocean Profile-Plankton Databases for Scientific

Research: World Ocean Database 2001

Sydney LevitusNOAA, NODC/WDC for Oceanography-Silver Spring

NOAA CGC C2D2 Meeting Washington, D.C.November 4, 2002

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WOD01 contributors

NOAA/NODC/OCL staff

Margarita ConkrightTim BoyerTodd O’BrienJohn AntonovDaphne JohnsonRicardo LocarniniHernan GarciaCathy StephensPaulette MurphyOlga BaranovaRobert GelfeldIgor Smolyar

IOC Member States

IODE Projects:

GTSPPGODARWOD

EU project:

MEDAR/MEDATLAS

Oceanographic institutesIndividual scientists

International Science projects:IGY, WOCE, JGOFS, GLOBEC,…

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Outline

1) Introduction

2) World Ocean Database 2001

3) Accomplishments

4) International support

5) History

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*based on a search of the Scientific Citation Index as of December 2001

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1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001

Year

# C

ita

tio

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World Ocean Database 1998 + Word Ocean Atlas 1998World Ocean Atlas 1994Climatological Atlas of the World Ocean

Total Number of Citations = 2,737

Utility of NODC/WDC Profile Data Based on Scientific Citations*

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Uses of ocean profile data

There are a number of specific uses for ocean profile data and products derived from such data including but not limited to:

1) Diagnostic studies describing role of the ocean as part of the earth's climate system;

2) Boundary and Initial conditions for numerical models;

3) Ocean Data assimilation

4) Verification for ocean and atmosphere simulations;

5) "Sea truth" for satellite ocean altimetry measurements";

6) Initial state for acoustic tomography inversions;

7) Establishing fields of temperature and salinity for paleoclimatic studies (e.g. CLIMAP).

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Importance of ocean variables for climate system science

1) temperature: earth’s heat balance;

2) salinity: earth’s freshwater balance;

3) oxygen: biogeochemical cycles;

4) nutrients: biogeochemical cycles, heat balance;

5) chlorophyll: biogeochemical cycles, heat balance;

6) plankton: biogeochemical cycles, heat balance.

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World Ocean Database 2001(a heterogeneous database)

Global, comprehensive, integrated, scientifically quality-controlled with all data in one well-documented format.

Available on-line (web accessible) and via CD-ROM.

Updates to WOD01 will shortly be available on-line at the end of every month.

Why is WOD01 characterized as a “heterogeneous” database?

1) Data from 55,897 cruises;

2) Data from 3057 ships and other platforms;

3) Data from 489 institutes;

4) Data from 112 countries.

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WOD01 on-line (Web accessible)

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Instrument Type WOD98 ADDED (% increase) TOTAL

Bottle (OSD) 1,373,440 715,184 (54%) 2,121,042

High Resolution Conductivity/Temperature/Depth (HCTD)

189,555 120,783 (65%) 311,943

Mechanical Bathythermograph (MBT) 2,077,200 336,953 (14%) 2,376,206

Expendable Bathythermograph (XBT) 1,537,203 215,735 (13%) 1,743,590

Fixed Platform (e.g., TAO, TRITON, PIRATA) 197,715 183,303 (177%) 297,936

Drifting Buoys* 0 50,549 50,549

Profile Float (PFLOAT: P-ALACE,SOLO,APEX) 0 22,637 22,637

Expendable Conductivity/Temperature/Depth (XCTD) 0 811 811

Towed Conductivity/Temperature/Depth (UOR) 0 37,651 37,631

Autonomous Pinniped Bathythermograph (APB) 0 75,665 75,665

Total Casts/Profiles 5,292,032 1,773,383 7,037,213

Total Surface-Only data (cruises) 0 4743 4743

World Ocean Database 2001 (WOD01) released as scheduled: March 31, 2002

*Green indicates a “new” instrument type.

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Comparison of the number of stations, casts, or profiles by instrument type in NODC/WDC databases as a function of time

Data type Climatological Atlas of the World Ocean (1982)- NODC data as of 1974

NODC Global Ocean T-S Profiles (1991)

WOA94 WOD98 WOD01

Station Data and Low Resolution CTD casts

425,000 783,912 1,194,407 1,373,440 2,121,042

High resolution CTD casts

na 66,450 89,000 189,555 311,943

MBT profiles 775,000 980,377 1,922,170 2,077,200 2,376,206

XBT profiles 290,000 704,424 1,281,942 1,537,203 1,743,590

Profiling Floats na na na na 22,637

Moored Buoys na na na 107,715 297,936

Drifting buoys na na na na 50,549

Undulating Ocean Recorders (e.g., towed CTDs)

na na na na 37,645

Autonomous Pinniped Bathythermograph

(Elephant Seal data)

na na na na 75,665

Total Stations/Casts/Profiles

1,490,000 2,535,163 4,487,519 5,285,113 7,037,213

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What are the problems associated with building World Ocean Database?

1) Many data sets received at NODC/WDC have problems such as missing or incorrect documentation.

It is labor intensive dealing with these problems.

Many data are received multiple times from different groups. Often the “same” data are not exactly identical. The problem of identifying “exact” duplicates is trivial, the problem of identifying “near” duplicates is non-trivial.

2) Even when data originators are submitting data using “standard” formats they sometimes change these “standard” formats without informing recipients of the changes.

3) There are many data types and detailed metadata are required to make the data useful.

4) Stewardship is a labor intensive process, e.g., acquisition and preparation of data, metadata, documentation.

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OSD cast data acquired through the GODAR Project for 1900-1991 compared to NODC archive holdings

as of 1991

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CTD/STD casts data acquired through the GODAR Project for 1965-1991 compared to NODC archive holding as of 1991

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XBT temperature profiles acquired through the GODAR Project for 1966-1991 compared to NODC archive holdings as of 1991

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MBT temperature profiles acquired through the GODAR Project for 1941-1991 compared to NODC archive holdings as of 1991

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Historya) September, 1988: Workshop on Ocean Data Files held at NODC,

Washington, D.C.Suggestion by S. Levitus “establishment of a “Historical Data Validation Project”

to “recover as much historical data as possible”.

b) September, 1990: International meeting held at NODC, Washington, D.C.

c) June 1990: NOAA support for data archaeology and rescue at NODC, Washington

c) February, 1992: Workshop on Ocean Climate Data, Greenbelt, Maryland

e) December, 1992: IODE meeting (Paris)

Proposal submitted for an international data archaeology and rescue project to IODE.

f) IOC Assembly meeting March, 1993:

IOC accepts the proposal and establishes the "Global Oceanographic Data Archaeology and

Rescue" project

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International aspects of ocean data archaeology and rescue

1) The Global Oceanographic Data Archaeology and Rescue (GODAR) Project was established in 1993 by the IOC. Syd Levitus is Project Leader

2) European Community has sponsored the MEDAR/MEDATLAS Project for several years. Data Archaeology and Rescue focused on the Mediterranean and Black Seas.

3) Japan is the host for the IOC GODAR/WESTPAC project focusing on countries bordering the western Pacific Ocean.

4) Numerous countries have internal data archaeology and rescue projects.

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The IOC Global Oceanographic Data Archaeology and Rescue (GODAR) Project

Six regional GODAR workshops have been held worldwide that encompass all countries that make oceanographic measurements.

Approximately 175 oceanographic data managers and scientists.

i) GODAR I - Obninsk, Russia May, 1993ii) GODAR II - Tianjin, China March, 1994iii) GODAR III - Goa, India December, 1995iv) GODAR IV - Malta April, 1995v) GODAR V - Cartagena, Colombia April, 1996vi) GODAR VI - Accra, Ghana March, 1997

These meetings have resulted in the identification of substantial amounts of data at risk of loss due to media decay (e.g., magnetic tape and paper)..

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Additional meetings

IOC-EU-BSH-NOAA-(WDC-A) International Workshop on Oceanographic Biological and Chemical Data ManagementMay 1996, BSH, Hamburg, Germany

International GODAR Review MeetingJuly 1999 Silver Spring, Washington, D.C.

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INTERNATIONAL PROGRAM SUPPORT FOR DATA ARCHAEOLOGY AND RESCUE ACTIVITIES

Support for data archaeology and rescue activities in oceanography and meteorology and specifically for the GODAR project has come from many sources with support increasing with time, e.g.:

World Climate Research program’s CLIVAR program (WCRP, 1995; 1999)

and

IPCC (1996).

References:

IPCC (Intergovernmental Program on Climate Change), Climate Change 1995: The Science of Climate Change, the contribution of Working Group 1 to the second assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England (1996).

WCRP, 1995: CLIVAR Science Plan. World Climate Research Program, WCRP-89 (WMO/TD NO. 690), 157 pp.

WCRP, 1999: CLIVAR Initial Implementation Plan. World Climate Research program, WCRP-103 (WMO-TD No. 869), 314 pp.

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WOD01 chlorophyll data

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WOD01 Plankton tows

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WOA01 Zooplankton biomass

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Ecuador CTD and Bottle data

CTD dataBottle Data

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Ocean Station Data CTD data

Chilean ocean data acquisition

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MIRC Japanese Mechanical Bathythermograph profiles (MBT)