Building an Ocean Profile-Plankton Database: Progress Since the "International Workshop on Oceanographic Biological and Chemical Data Management"

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Building an Ocean Profile-Plankton Database
Progress Since the "International Workshop on
Oceanographic Biological and Chemical Data
Management"
Ocean Biodiversity Informatics International
Conference on Marine Biodiversity Data
Management Hamburg, Germany 30 November
2004 Sydney Levitus, Bob Gelfeld World Data
Center for Oceanography- Silver Spring
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REASONS FOR BUILDING GLOBAL, HISTORICAL IN SITU
OCEANOGRAPHIC DATA BASES

• The international scientific community advises
  national and international bodies on such issues
  as climate change (i.e. IPCC), biodiversity,...
• Historical data are required to support such
  studies.
• The international scientific community must
  have access to the most complete oceanographic
  data bases possible.
• These data bases must be accessible in
  electronic form and available internationally
  without restriction.
• b) Ocean measurement programs are expensive.
  Scientists planning such programs should have
  access to all available data in order to make the
  most efficient use of scarce scientific
  resources such as ships.
• c) Pollutants flow across boundaries. The
  international community should have access to
  all historical data for pollution transport
  studies. This is particularly important for
  studies of the coastal environment. Natural
  variability versus anthropogenically induced
  changes.
• d) To develop and improve long-range weather
  forecasts. Statistical forecasting and hind
  casting studies require historical ocean data.

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The Global Oceanographic Data Archaeology and
Rescue (GODAR) Project
Established in 1993 by the Intergovernmental
Oceanographic Commission. "Data Archaeology"
the process of seeking out, restoring,
evaluating, correcting, and interpreting
historical data sets "Data Rescue" the
effort to save data at risk of being lost to the
science community by digitizing manuscript data
and copying data on older, failing electronic
media, and then archiving these data into an
internationally available electronic database.
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GODAR Results

• Data added to NODC/WDC archives since 1994
• 3.0 million temperature profiles
• 140,000 Chlorophyll profiles
• 142,200 plankton taxa
• Six Regional Workshops (1993-1997)
• International Review Conference (July 10-13,
  1999) Silver Spring, MD - hosted 75
  representatives from 25 countries
• Recognized success of GODAR Project and
  established World Ocean Database
• Encouraged expansion into rescue of sea level
  and other datasets

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What are the problems associated with building
World Ocean Database?

• acquisition and preparation of data, metadata,
  documentation.
• missing or incorrect documentation (metadata)
• labor intensive
• received multiple times from different groups
• near duplicates

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World Ocean Database 2001

• Global, comprehensive, integrated, scientifically
  quality-controlled with all data in one
  well-documented format.
• Available on-line (www.nodc.noaa.gov)
• and via CD-ROM.
• Why is WOD01 characterized as a heterogeneous
  database?
• Data from 55,897 cruises
• Data from 3057 ships and other platforms
• Data from 489 institutes
• Data from 112 countries.

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NODC/WDC/OCL staff supporting WOD01 development

• John Antonov Bob Gelfeld
• Olga Baranova Daphne Johnson
• Tim Boyer Ricardo Locarnini
• Margarita Conkright Todd OBrien
• Carla Forgy Igor Smolyar
• Hernan Garcia Cathy Stephens
• World-wide support from many scientists,
  institutes,
• and countries.

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World Ocean Database 2001(WOD01)
PROBE (Instrument Type) WOD98 ADDED TOTAL
Bottle (OSD) 1,373,440 746,602 2,121,042
Mechanical Bathythermograph (MBT) 2,077,200 299,006 2,376,206
Expendable Bathythermograph (XBT) 1,537,203 206,389 1,743,592
High Resolution Conductivity/Temperature/Depth (HCTD) 189,555 122,789 312,344
Profiling Float (e.g., PALACE, SOLO, APEX) 0 22,637 22,637
Moored Buoy (e.g. TAO, PIRATA, TRITON) 114,634 182,762 297,936
Drifting Buoy 0 50,549 50,549
Towed Conductivity/Temperature/Depth (UOR) 0 37,651 37,631
Autonomous Pinniped Bathythermograph (APBT) 0 75,665 75,665
Total Casts/Profiles 5,292,032 1,773,383 7,037,062
Total Surface-Only Observations 159,794 1,650,852 1,810,646
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Contributors to WOD01

• Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commissions
  (IOC)
• Global Oceanographic Data Archaeology and
  Rescue project (GODAR),
• World Ocean Database (WOD) project,
• Global Temperature-Salinity Profile Project
  (GTSPP),
• World Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE),
• Joint Global Ocean Flux Studies (JGOFS),
• Ocean Margin Experiment (OMEX),
• Intergovernmental Program on Climate Change
  (IPCC),
• World Climate Research programs CLIVAR program
  (WCRP).

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Utility of NODC/WDC profile-plankton data as
indicated by citations in the scientific
literature
Based on a search of the ISI Scientific Citation
Index as of March 2004
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WOD01 on-line (Web accessible)
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The World Ocean Database retrieval system
(WODselect) allows the user to select criteria
and search for data in the World Ocean Database
2001 (WOD01). The stations matching the user's
search criteria are then extracted and made
available (via FTP) in WOD01 native data format.
USER SEARCH CRITERIA Geographic
Area, Observation Dates, Instrument Type (e.g.,
OSD, CTD, XBT), Parameters, Deepest
Measurement, Country, Ship/Platform, Project,
Institute, Data exclusion using OCL quality
control flags url http//www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/
SELECT/dbsearch/dbsearch.html
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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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Building Ocean Profile-Plankton Databases for
Climate System Research
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Historical and modern chlorophyll data recovered
as part of the GODAR and WOD projects
128,601 chlorophyll profiles, 44256 surface-only
observations
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WOD01 Plankton tows
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International Ocean Atlas Series, Volume 2
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International Ocean Atlas Series
International Ocean Atlas and Information Series,
Volume 6 Zooplankton of the Arctic Seas 2002

• Partnership with the Zoological Institute,
  Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg.
• Important for ecosystem response to climate
  change, ecosystem modeling.

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International Ocean Atlas and Information Series

• 36 year Time Series (1963-1998)
• of Zooplankton, Temperature,
• and Salinity in the White Sea
• Supports
• Ecosystem Response to
• Climate Change
• 2) Understanding Climate Variability
• 3) International Polar Year

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Time series of ocean heat content (1022J)
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Earths Heat Balance (1022 J), 1955-1998
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Linear trend of yearly (1956-2000) ocean heat
content (1018 J) 0-1500 m
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Atlantic- Linear trend (1955-98) of basin
zonally-averaged salinity (10-04 year-1)
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Atlantic- variance accounted for by the linear
trend (1955-98) of basin zonally averaged salinity
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SEAWIFS versus CZCS summer chlorophyll estimate
Figure 2. Summer (Jul-Sep) blended chlorophyll
(mg m-3) distributions for the SeaWiFS era
(1997-2000), the CZCS era (1979-mid-1986), and
their difference. (Gregg and Conkright, 2002,
GRL)
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SEAWIFS versus CZCS annual primary production
estimate
Figure 3. Annual primary production (Pg C y-1).
(Gregg et al., 2003, GRL)
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NODCs Vision - We acquire and preserve the
nations oceanographic datawith quality,
consistency, and continuity in a timely and
easily accessible way for the public interest,
policy development, economic good of the nation,
and the progress of science. We interpret the
present in the context of the past for the
prediction of the future.
NODCs Vision - We acquire and preserve the
nations oceanographic datawith quality,
consistency, and continuity in a timely and
easily accessible way for the public interest,
policy development, economic good of the nation,
and the progress of science. We interpret the
present in the context of the past for the
prediction of the future.
National Oceanographic Data Center