IOOS Data Activities

The Environmental Research Division has been a leader within NOAA in providing data to a broad spectrum of users utilizing methods that are consistent with emerging NOAA Global Earth Observation – Integrated Data Environment (GEO-IDE) and IOOS Data Management and Communication ( DMAC) standards for data access and transport providing interoperability with other NOAA data and data servers.

The goal of these data activities are to:

• Develop a suite of fisheries relevant data that cover the entire spectrum of the ocean environment from surface or near-surface wind and pressure data to surface and subsurface measurements of important oceanographic parameters;
• Integrate the oceanographic and atmospheric data with biological data [ Figure 1 ];
• Make these data sets readily accessible to scientists, managers and the general public to support ecosystem based management, research on fisheries, marine mammals and protected species, and for studies in climate change and environmental variability [ Figure 2 ];
  

In cooperation with the West Coast Regional Node of Coastwatch, over 4 terabytes of data are available online, and the amount is increasing every month. The data can accessed, subsetted, visualized and downloaded in a variety of methods designed to reduce the time the user needs to spend preparing the data and allowing the user to acquire just the desired data rather than an entire dataset.

Data can be acquired through:

• Live Access Servers (LAS) [ Figure 3 ]
• Dapper and DChart Access to in situ measurements [ Figure 4 ]
• Coastwatch Browser
• OPeNDAP Server 
• THREDDS catalogs, including OPeNDAP and Web Coverage Services 
• Simplified scripting GetQueries command 

Similar data services have also been developed for CeNCOOS and the Tagging of Pacific Pelagics (TOPP) programs.

Besides serving data, efforts have centered on developing customized and improved web browsing applications, enabling commonly used applications to remotely access the data directly into the program, and applications for translations between various services and improved scripting.

Relevance to NOAA ‘s Strategic Mission for Fiscal Years 2008-2012:

• Globally integrated oceanic and atmospheric observations and data management
  • Operationally integrated NOAA observing systems based on a common architecture and nested within other national and global Earth observation systems
  • Integrated data assimilation and management: archived, interoperable, accessible, and readily usable observations and data products
• Collaborative, science-based approaches to ecosystem management.