NODCi 9 April 2009

Marine Data – A Big Issue

Lesley RickardsDeputy Director, British Oceanographic Data Centre

NODCi Symposium, Amsterdam – 9 April 2009

Joseph Proudman Laboratory, 6 Brownlow Street, Liverpool L3 5DA, U.K. ljr@bodc.ac.uk

NODCi 9 April 2009

IntroductionWhere are we now?• Data archiving• Data discovery • Data exploration and deliveryWhat have we learnt?• How not to build a global data system?What is the way forward?• Metadata• Quality control• Data transfer and access• Examples of integrated marine data systems

under developmentConclusion

Marine Data – A Big Issue

NODCi 9 April 2009

Marine Data – A Big Issue

Why are marine data important?

• Underpin many of our activities, e.g.• Scientific research, modelling, monitoring

and assessment• Fundamental to understanding processes

that control our natural environment

• Often irreplaceable – always unique

• Spatial and temporal coverage is quite sparse

• Can also be extremely expensive to collect

• Important to ensure that maximum benefit derived from data

• Answer local questions (e.g. coastal flooding) and global issues (e.g. prediction of the impact of global warming)

• “capture once – use many times”

NODCi 9 April 2009

Marine Data – A Big IssueData policies• Maximise use of data

• Aim should be to make data freely available

• Promote free access to data – but protect IPR

• WMO Resolution 40

• IOC Data Exchange Policy (IOC Resolution XX-6)

promote free and open access to data

• International Council for Science, ICSU

“science has long been best served by a system of minimal constraints on the availability of data and information”

• ICES – new data policy

• National and project data policies

NODCi 9 April 2009

Marine Data – A Big Issue

Key questions from the User: • Where can I send my data to ensure they are

preserved?• Where can I find data of interest, and how can I get

them?

Where are we now?

• Archive - assemble and preserve data

• Discovery - find what data and information are available

• Exploration - determine what data are needed

• Delivery - acquire the data of interest

NODCi 9 April 2009

Marine Data – A Big Issue

Data archiving

NODCi 9 April 2009

Marine Data – A Big Issue

Data constitute the raw material of scientific understanding. The World Data Center system works to guarantee access to solar, geophysical and related environmental data. It serves the whole scientific community by assembling, scrutinizing, organizing and disseminating data and information.

52 Centres in 12 countries including three for oceanography hosted by USA, Russia and China and one for Marine Environmental Data hosted by Germany

NODCi 9 April 2009

Marine Data – A Big IssuePermanent Service for Mean Sea Level (PSMSL)• established by ICSU• collection, publication, analysis and interpretation

of sea level data from the global tide gauge network

• 55000 station-years of monthly and annual mean values of sea level

• over 1800 tide gauge stations• 200 national authorities• 2000 station-years of data received annually

NODCi 9 April 2009

Marine Data – A Big Issue

ICES Data Centre• Long history• Publication of raw scientific data• Now fish catch, fisheries biological data,

oceanographic, marine contaminants

• Intercalibration exercises; advice on quality control

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Marine Data – A Big Issue

• Over 60 National Oceanographic Data Centres established by IOC/IODE

• Very varied data holdings

92% physical oceanographic data78% chemical data72% biological data55% marine meteorology and atmospheric data52% geological and geophysical data30% real-time data

~50% data relevant to the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS)~40% links with science programmes (e.g. CLIVAR, Argo, GLOBEC)

NODCi 9 April 2009

Marine Data – A Big IssueWorld Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE) Data System

NODCi 9 April 2009

Marine Data – A Big Issue

Data discovery

NODCi 9 April 2009

Marine Data – A Big Issue

Discovery – find what data and information are available

NODCi 9 April 2009

Marine Data – A Big Issue

Data exploration and delivery

NODCi 9 April 2009

Global Ocean Surface Underway Data (GOSUD)Temperature and salinity data available

• Argo, GOSUD, OceanSITESPlus…• Drifting Buoys (DBCP)• GTSPP• GLOSS (Sea Level)• Carbon Dioxide Information

Analysis Centre (CDIAC)• etc., etc.

Marine Data – A Big Issue

NODCi 9 April 2009

Marine Data – A Big IssueOcean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS)

• Over 13 million locations for 78,000 species can now be integrated from 145 interoperable datasets online

• Global geo-referenced information• Accurately identified marine species• Part of the Census of Marine Life (CoML)

Coastal and Oceanic Plankton Ecology, Production and Observation DatabaseIntegrated data set of quality-controlled, globally distributed:

• zooplankton and phytoplankton abundance• biomass• composition data• co-sampled environmental data

NODCi 9 April 2009

Marine Data – A Big IssueLiverpool Bay Coastal Observatory• To understand a coastal sea's response both to natural forcing

and to the consequences of human activity • Integrate (near) real-time measurements with coupled models into

a pre-operational coastal prediction system

NODCi 9 April 2009

Marine Data – A Big IssueGIS developments• Canadian GeoBrowser• MAREANO - Norway• EU Mapping European Seabed

Habitats (MESH)• Marine Irish Data Atlas (MIDA)

NODCi 9 April 2009

Marine Data – A Big Issue

What have we learnt?

Current problems

We have no common way to:

• Discover data of interest

• Assess or indicate quality

• Name variables and attributes

• Handle the variety of data from different disciplines

Duplication of data and information:

• Many times!

• Same data from different places looks different

NODCi 9 April 2009

Marine Data – A Big Issue

The next steps

NODCi 9 April 2009

Marine Data – A Big IssueWhat are the next steps?

How to build a global marine data system

How would we approach this?• Determine objectives• Assess problems in current systems• Find solutions – without creating bigger problems!• Exploit new technologies• New ideas on data handling• New ideas on data usage • Agree standard practices and protocols• Would require cooperation on a scale not yet seen!• Everyone would need to change their current practices• But the payoff would be large and shared by all

NODCi 9 April 2009

Marine Data – A Big Issue

The key: STANDARDS

Ocean Data ATM

IOC-IODE/JCOMM Standards Forum

www.oceandatastandards.org

NODCi 9 April 2009

Marine Data – A Big Issue

Metadata

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Marine Data – A Big Issue

Naming Standards• Variables get different “names” at different places• Possible that different variables get the same name• Creates confusion on data delivery• No standards• Marine Metadata Interoperability (MMI) project • SeaVox

NODCi 9 April 2009

Marine Data – A Big Issue

Quality control

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Marine Data – A Big Issue

Why quality control?

Loss of data quality can occur at many stages:

• At the time of collection

• During digitisation

• During documentation

• During storage and archiving

• During analysis and manipulation

• At time of presentation

• And through the use to which they are put

NODCi 9 April 2009

Marine Data – A Big Issue

• Projects have tried to standardise procedures

• e.g. some global and EU projects – GODAR, GTSPP, GOSUD, Surface drifter archive, Argo)

• Real-time – need automatic checks

• SeaDataNet project => quality control manual starting from existing procedures and standards

• All parameters including:• marine biology• biodiversity• fisheries• chemistry

• Best practice => documented, recommended and easily accessible

NODCi 9 April 2009

Marine Data – A Big Issue

Data transfer and access

NODCi 9 April 2009

Open-source Project for a Network Data Access Protocol

• software which makes local data accessible to remote locations regardless of local storage format

• uses existing network protocols and technologies (based on the HTTP)• freely available

Distributed Generic Information Retrieval (DiGIR)

• protocol and a set of tools for retrieving structured data from multiple, heterogeneous databases across the Internet

• uses open protocols and standards, such as HTTP and XML• public open source project

Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC)• non-profit, international, voluntary consensus standards organization that

is leading the development of standards for geospatial and location based services

Marine Data – A Big Issue

NODCi 9 April 2009

Marine Data – A Big Issue

Examples of systems under development

NODCi 9 April 2009

Marine Data – A Big Issue

NODCi – A National Infrastructure for access to oceanographic and marine data and information in The Netherlands

• Marine Environmental Data and Information Network (MEDIN) – A collaborative and open partnership, open to all with an interest in improving our management of marine data and information, and developing better access to our marine data resources

NODCi 9 April 2009

Marine Data – A Big IssueUS Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) Plan forData Management and Communications (DMAC)

NODCi 9 April 2009

Marine Data – A Big Issue

SeaDataNet• An initiative to

improve the level of quality, the long term stewardship and the accessibility of marine data

NOTE ALSO:• ECOOP

• MyOcean

• EMODNET

NODCi 9 April 2009

Marine Data – A Big Issue

End-to-End Data Management (E2EDM) Pilot Project (JCOMM/IODE ETDMP)

NODCi 9 April 2009

Marine Data – A Big Issue

Conclusions

NODCi 9 April 2009

Marine Data – A Big IssueConclusions:• Increasingly data recognised as a valuable resource• But a culture change required• The “Big Issue” of marine data is for us all • Good data management begins at home• We must all work together to:

• Establish common ways to discover data of interest• Name variables and attributes of data and information• Assess or indicate the quality of data in our archives• Handle data from the variety of disciplines• Stop duplicating copies of data• Build upon what already exists• Work together - not in isolation• Do not reinvent the wheel

• Future convergence of developing systems• Can lead to development of a Marine Data “ATM”

NODCi 9 April 2009

Marine Data – A Big Issue

Finally the wider context:• WMO Information System (WIS)

• International Polar Year

• OBIS and CoML

• Our political leaders have signed up to GEO (Group on Earth Observations)

• GEO is leading a worldwide effort to build a Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) over the next 10 years, building upon existing systems

• Transforming the data into vital information for society

• Marine data must form an important component of this