Sydney Levitus NOAA, NODC/WDC for Oceanography-Silver Spring NOAA CGC C2D2 Meeting

1. Building Global Ocean Profile-Plankton Databases for Scientific Research: World Ocean Database 2001 Sydney Levitus NOAA, NODC/WDC for Oceanography-Silver Spring NOAA CGC C2D2 Meeting Washington, D.C. November 4, 2002

2. IOC Member States WOD01 contributors IODE Projects: GTSPP GODAR WOD EU project: MEDAR/MEDATLAS NOAA/NODC/OCL staff Margarita Conkright Tim Boyer Todd O’Brien John Antonov Daphne Johnson Ricardo Locarnini Hernan Garcia Cathy Stephens Paulette Murphy Olga Baranova Robert Gelfeld Igor Smolyar International Science projects: IGY, WOCE, JGOFS, GLOBEC,… Oceanographic institutes Individual scientists

3. Outline • 1) Introduction • 2) World Ocean Database 2001 • 3) Accomplishments • 4) International support • History

4. Utility of NODC/WDC Profile Data Based on Scientific Citations* *based on a search of the Scientific Citation Index as of December 2001

5. 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; • 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).

6. Importance of ocean variables for climate system science • temperature: earth’s heat balance; • salinity: earth’s freshwater balance; • oxygen: biogeochemical cycles; • nutrients: biogeochemical cycles, heat balance; • chlorophyll: biogeochemical cycles, heat balance; • plankton: biogeochemical cycles, heat balance.

7. 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; • Data from 3057 ships and other platforms; • Data from 489 institutes; • Data from 112 countries.

8. WOD01 on-line (Web accessible)

9. World Ocean Database 2001 (WOD01)released as scheduled: March 31, 2002 *Green indicates a “new” instrument type.

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

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

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

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

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

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

16. 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”. • September, 1990: International meeting held at NODC, Washington, D.C. • June 1990: NOAA support for data archaeology and rescue at NODC, Washington • 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 History

17. 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 • European Community has sponsored the MEDAR/MEDATLAS Project for several years. Data Archaeology and Rescue focused on the Mediterranean and Black Seas. • Japan is the host for the IOC GODAR/WESTPAC project focusing on countries bordering the western Pacific Ocean. • Numerous countries have internal data archaeology and rescue projects.

18. 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, 1993 ii) GODAR II - Tianjin, China March, 1994 iii) GODAR III - Goa, India December, 1995 iv) GODAR IV - Malta April, 1995 v) GODAR V - Cartagena, Colombia April, 1996 vi) 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)..

19. Additional meetings IOC-EU-BSH-NOAA-(WDC-A) International Workshop on Oceanographic Biological and Chemical Data Management May 1996, BSH, Hamburg, Germany International GODAR Review Meeting July 1999 Silver Spring, Washington, D.C.

20. 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.

21. WOD01 chlorophyll data

22. WOD01 Plankton tows

23. WOA01 Zooplankton biomass

24. Ecuador CTD and Bottle data Bottle Data CTD data

25. Chilean ocean data acquisition CTD data Ocean Station Data

26. MIRC Japanese Mechanical Bathythermograph profiles (MBT)