OceanSITES Project Office Report

1. OceanSITES Project Office Report Kelly Stroker JCOMMOPS kstroker@jcommops.org projectoffice@oceansites.org

2. Outline • New JCOMMOPS Project Office Coordinator • Project Office main duties and responsibilities • Priority tasks for 2011-2012 • Progress in achieving those tasks • Network Status information etc • Future priority tasks

3. Project Office Hester Viola departed in Oct, 2010 Kelly Stroker arrived in Sept, 2011 Kelly most came to JCOMMOPS from Boulder, CO where she has worked at the NOAA National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC) since 2003.

4. Reminder: Main Duties and Responsibilities • Provide technical assistance and support to OceanSITES members • Follow guidance of the Co-chairs of OceanSITES. • Assist the OceanSITES Steering Committee to: • ensure that data is shared and used, continually assess the success of the network in delivering the required data. • consider system resources, logistics, data delivery (real-time, delayed-mode) • ensure updates to OceanSITES maps, as sites change. • update and contribute to website content (general information, news, etc) • Assist the OceanSITES Data Management team to: • Document data sources, in a centrally accessible Metadata Catalogue • Develop and improve data formats • Assist in assigning site NAMES for the data system and ensure that data flows are correct for new sites and address any problems to GDACs and responsible parties

5. Main Duties and Responsibilities • Maintain and Compile documentation (Metadata Catalogue, Whitepapers) for new sites or system elements (including deleting sites if necessary). • Attend meetings and workshops arranged by or on behalf of the OceanSITES Global Team (Science Team and Data Management Team) as required. Develop preparatory documents as required. Assist in arranging meetings as required. • Promote OceanSITES and related programmes to encourage use of observing platform data, and new participants in these programmes • Liaise with other related programs to increase integration of data access and resources (such as real time data sharing and ship time) • Maintain contact details for OceanSITES participants and Principal Investigators, email lists and user groups

6. Priority tasks for 2011-2012 • Resume Project Office tasks • New map products to view network status • Website transfer to JCOMMOPS and updates/improvements to site • Updating contact details and user groups • Supporting the Data Management Team in getting data (and metadata) onto GDACs • Maintaining Site Catalog, monitoring data flows • Sustained funding

7. Tasks from Project Office

8. Documents to Review • Documentation: • Review the ‘How to Become an OceanSITES’ Document and finalize • Review the ‘OceanSITESApproval’ Document • Several sites currently waiting for approval: • POSEIDON-Pylos • CalOCFICCE-1 • WyvilleThomson Ridge Overflow • South China Indonesian Seas Transport Exchange (SITE) • SundraStrait Dynamics Faroe Bank Channel Overflow • HAUSGARTEN • Agulhas Retur Current Reference Station

9. Current GDAC Sites

10. Current Status (2009)

11. Vision (2009) Including discontinued sites

12. Site Metadata • Familiarization with the metadata in the OceanSITES NetCDF data format • Assisted NDBC in compiling a questionnaire for metadata management. • Followed up with some DACs to ensure that the questionnaire was filled in and metadata put onto GDACs in .doc or .xml format • Maintained Site Catalog with up-to-date information about sites which were preparing or ready to share data on the GDACs. • Reviewed data on GDACs • Worked with GDAC administrators on how to deal with older datasets and problems with synchronizing • Monthly map now available showing sites sharing data on the GTS of WMO

13. Site Catalog

14. Websites • www.oceansites.org • Reviewed web structure • Provided updates to documentation for website (hosted at WHOI) • Corrected outdated links and simplified structure • Added new data links on www.oceansites.org/data/ • Links to maps are straight to JCOMMOPS, so they are easily updated for changes to network • Removed link to the web mapping tool, using Google Earth in preference (plus web mapping at JCOMMOPS) • Network status Maps and Documents available via JCOMMOPS FTP • Remind participants to contribute to the OceanSITES Photo album: http://picasaweb.google.com/JCOMMOPS/OceanSITES# (or send images directly to projectoffice@oceansites.org) • New web content entered on http://www.jcomm.info

15. Communications • Maintained contact details for OceanSITES participants and Principal Investigators (in a central repository either on the JCOMMOPS or JCOMM website)  • Created new email lists • oceansites-exec@jcommops.org • oceansites-sc@jcommops.org • oceansites-dmt@jcommops.org • oceansites-dmInfo@jcommops.org • oceansites-guests@jcommops.org • Plus aliases • projectoffice@oceansites.org, info@oceansites.org • gdac@oceansites.org • cochairs@oceansites.org, cochairs-dm@oceansites.org • Created user groups/mailing lists on the JCOMM website (OceanSITES Science Team, Data Management Team)

16. Funding at JCOMMOPS • JCOMMOPS - hosted at CLS in Toulouse, France and funded through the following annual (or ad hoc) national voluntary contributions • DBCP: Australia, Canada, Europe (E-SURFMAR), France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, India, Ireland, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, South Africa, United Kingdom, USA. • Argo/SOT (all annual): Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, South Korea, United Kingdom, USA. • JCOMMOPS (2007): India • OceanSITES- Funding from Australia and USA, plus commitment from IFREMER, France. • POGO declared its support of OceanSITES as outlined in the final Seoul Declaration: Establishment of a globally-coordinated network of time series observation station in the oceans to monitor a rapidly changing Earth System through OceanSITES.

17. Future priority tasks • Support DACs in providing data and metadata • New DACs and expanded data sets for existing DACs in line with DMT priorities • New sites - constantly work to identify additional operators of candidate sites and convince them to become part of the OceanSITES system • Help to make the OceanSITES web page, a portal to all the other products/indicators and for data web pages. • Assist with finding and providing products (15m currents, surface fluxes, SSS, etc) and indicators collected from various OceanSITES member websites • Ensure that each site’s web page adds an OceanSITES logo or name at the top/side.

18. Future tasks • Create groups to contact as experts on specific sensors and variables (Mentors) • Develop JCOMMOPS metadata loading routines to check status of GDACs and automatically update database • Create monthly map showing GDAC data flows. • Maintain list of DAC’s and data flows to and track progress of data provision/flow • Google earth file updated daily/monthly with full metadata descriptions and links to GDAC datasets • Redesign web mapping tools at JCOMMOPS for all OceanSITES layers (synchronized with Google Earth)

19. Questions, Comments • Email: projectoffice@jcommops.org • Six monthly reports are on: • http://www.jcommops.org/FTPRoot/OceanSITES/status/project_office_reports/