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
1
REASONS FOR BUILDING GLOBAL, HISTORICAL
IN SITU OCEANOGRAPHIC DATA BASES
a)
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.
2
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.
3
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
4
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”
5
World Ocean Database 2001
Global, comprehensive, integrated,
scientifically quality-controlled
with all data in one welldocumented 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
Olga Baranova
Tim Boyer
Margarita Conkright
Carla Forgy
Hernan Garcia
Bob Gelfeld
Daphne Johnson
Ricardo Locarnini
Todd O’Brien
Igor Smolyar
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
189,555
122,789
312,344
0
22,637
22,637
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
5,292,032
1,773,383
7,037,062
159,794
1,650,852
1,810,646
High Resolution
Conductivity/Temperature/Depth (HCTD)
Profiling Float (e.g., PALACE, SOLO, APEX)
Moored Buoy (e.g. TAO, PIRATA, TRITON)
Total Casts/Profiles
Total Surface-Only Observations
8
Contributors to WOD01
•
•
•
•
•
•
Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission’s
(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 program’s CLIVAR
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program (WCRP).
Utility of NODC/WDC profile-plankton data as indicated
Utility of NODC Profile-Plankton Data Based on Scientific Citations
by citations in the scientific literature*
500
450
World Ocean Atlas 1994
350
300
Climatological Atlas of the World Ocean (1982)
250
200
Total Number of Citations = 3,859
150
100
50
0
19
83
19
84
19
85
19
86
19
87
19
88
19
89
19
90
19
91
19
92
19
93
19
94
19
95
19
96
19
97
19
98
19
99
20
00
20
01
20
02
20
03
# Citations
400
World Ocean Database 1998 + World Ocean Atlas 1998
Year
*Based on a search of the ISI Scientific Citation Index as of March 2004
10
WOD01 on-line
(Web accessible)
11
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
12
13
OSD cast data acquired through the GODAR Project for 1900-1991
compared to NODC archive holdings as of 1991
70,000
GODAR as of WOD01 (2001): 1,050,509 casts
NODC (1991): 783,912 casts
50,000
40,000
30,000
20,000
10,000
0
19
00
19
05
19
10
19
15
19
20
19
25
19
30
19
35
19
40
19
45
19
50
19
55
19
60
19
65
19
70
19
75
19
80
19
85
19
90
Number of Casts
60,000
Year
14
Building Ocean Profile-Plankton Databases for Climate System Research
9
8
# of Profiles (millions)
WOD04
~7,700,000
Temperature Profiles
Salinity Profiles
WOD01
7,037,213
7
WOD98
5,285,113
6
WOA94
4,487,519
5
4
NODC 1991
2,535,163
3
2
NODC 1974
1,490,000
2,432,985
1,562,995
1,283,407
1
400,00
0
1970
1974
1978
1982
1986
1990
Year
1994
1998
2002
2006
15
Historical and modern chlorophyll data recovered as part
of the GODAR and WOD projects
128,601 chlorophyll profiles, 44256 surface-only observations
16
WOD01 Plankton tows
17
International Ocean Atlas Series, Volume 2
Biological Atlas of the Arctic Seas 2000:
Plankton of the Barents and Kara Seas
0
8 0° N
10 0
20 0
30 0
40 0
50 0
4 0° E
1 0 ,10 0 sta ti o n s
>50 0 m
8 0° E
8 0° N
7 0° N
World Data Center-A
for Oceanogr aphy
18
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.
19
International Ocean Atlas and Information Series
“36 year Time Series (1963-1998)
of Zooplankton, Temperature,
and Salinity in the White Sea”
0
13
12
-10
11
10
-20
9
8
7
Supports:
-30
6
5
4
-40
3
1) Ecosystem Response to
Climate Change…
2) Understanding Climate
Variability…
3) International Polar Year
2
-50
1
Temperature
June-September
0
-1
-60
1965
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
0
29
-10
28
27
-20
26
25
-30
24
23
-40
22
21
-50
20
Salinity
June-September
20
-60
1965
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
19
18
Time series of ocean heat content (1022J)
21
Earths Heat Balance (1022 J), 1955-1998
22
Linear trend of yearly (1956-2000) ocean heat content (1018 J)
0-1500 m
23
Atlantic- Linear trend (1955-98) of basin zonally-averaged salinity (10-04 year-1)
24
Atlantic- % variance accounted for by the linear trend (1955-98) of basin zonally
averaged salinity
25
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)
26
SEAWIFS versus CZCS annual primary production estimate
Figure 3. Annual primary
production (Pg C y-1).
(Gregg et al., 2003, GRL)
27
NODC’s
nation’s oceanographic
NODC’sVision
Vision -- We
Weacquire
acquireand
andpreserve
preservethethe
nation’s
data…with quality, consistency, and continuity; in a timely and easily
oceanographic
data…with
quality,policy
consistency,
and continuity;
in a
accessible
way; for
the public interest,
development,
economic good
and easily
for the
interest,
policy
oftimely
the nation,
and theaccessible
progress ofway;
science.
Wepublic
interpret
the present
in the
context
of the past
for the prediction
future.and the progress of
development,
economic
good of of
thethenation,
science. We interpret the present in the context of the past for the
prediction of the future.
National Oceanographic Data Center
28