From Ocean Teacher Library

Project Archives & Special Collections

Contents 1 Background 2 Research Project Data Centers 2.1 Research Data Availability 2.2 Data Formats 2.3 Selected Sources 3 Subsections of this Article 4 Information about this article 5 Contact

Background

Research Project Data Centers

Data centers established by specific research projects to manage project datasets until final archiving at Intergovernmental Centers or other final disposition

Research Data Availability

A large amount of high-quality oceanographic data is obtained every year by ongoing research ocean programs. Historically, these data were not available to "outside" researchers for several years, while the program principal investigators worked on their own analyses. During some recent major programs (see examples below) a great deal of effort went into the development of individual, special program data archives where the data were published relatively quickly (~1 year after collection). As the global operational oceanography movement continues, methods developed in that community will become available to the research community for easier and more timely transmission and release of data. Overall, it appears that all major program datasets will continue to be archived in IODE Data Centers, but due to their increasing size in many cases, the centers have sometimes opted to keep the datasets intact, as special, separate collections. Most recently, the Global Change Master Directory has begun offering special "portals" to the data sets from a specific major program; this provides a "virtual" special collection.

Data Formats

Initially, publishers of program data archives faced the formats problem alone, and early collections were often made available in "home-made" formats developed by the researchers for their own use. Almost universally, the earliest CD-ROM publications each contained their own formats, making it a very frustrating job to synthesize data from multiple collections. Although some major data publications (e.g. World Ocean Database 1994 et sequitur) and software (e.g. Java OceanAtlas, Ocean Data View) focused attention on the notion of "standard" formats, little had happened in this direction until recent developments with OPeNDAP and its most widely used format, NetCDF, took center stage in the 2002-2004 timeframe. This most welcome move toward de facto "standards" is still hampered somewhat by the existence of different versions of NetCDF, and NetCDF has not yet been optimized for station data, but there are indications that these problems will be solved shortly.

Selected Sources

[needs a lot of work to be re-built]

• General Archives and Collections
  • GCOS Portal > Global Climate Observing System
  • GOOS Portal > Global Ocean Observing System
  • Portal for Model Output Data

• Specific Data Type Archives and Collections
  • PSMSL Catalog of Sea Level Data Centers
  • Global Argo Data Repository (GADR) - Argo float data
  • Browse Global Temperature-Salinity Profile Program Data

Subsections of this Article

	Pagename	Short title	Description
Tide Data and Predictions	Tide Data and Predictions	Tides	none

Information about this article

Short title: Archives and Collections

Description: none

Expertise level: beginner

Author: Murray.Brown

Approval status: approved

Approved by: Murray.Brown

Last change: 2009-9-1

Subsection of: Data Centers, Marine Research

Contact

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