IN33B-3764:
Leveraging the Unified Access Framework: A Tale of an Integrated Ocean Data Prototype
Wednesday, 17 December 2014
Kevin O'Brien1, Kevin Kern2, Bill Smith2, Roland Schweitzer3, Robert Simons4, Roy Mendelssohn5, Stephen C Diggs6, Mathieu Belbeoch7 and Steve Hankin8, (1)University of Washington Seattle Campus, Seattle, WA, United States, (2)National Data Buoy Center, Stennis Space Center, MS, United States, (3)Self Employed, College Station, TX, United States, (4)NOAA Pacific Grove, Pacific Grove, CA, United States, (5)NOAA/NMFS/SWFSC, Pacific Grove, CA, United States, (6)Univ. of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, United States, (7)JCOMMOPS - OceanSITES Project Office, Ramonville-Saint-Agne, France, (8)NOAA Seattle, Seattle, WA, United States
Abstract:
The Tropical Pacific Observing System (TPOS) has been functioning and capturing measurements since the mid 1990s during the very successful Tropical Ocean Global Atmosphere (TOGA) project. Unfortunately, in the current environment, some 20 years after the end of the TOGA project, sustaining the observing system is proving difficult. With the many advances in methods of observing the ocean, a group of scientists is taking a fresh look at what the Tropical Pacific Observing System requires for sustainability. This includes utilizing a wide variety of observing system platforms, including Argo floats, unmanned drifters, moorings, ships, etc.
This variety of platforms measuring ocean data also provides a significant challenge in terms of integrated data management. It is recognized that data and information management is crucial to the success and impact of any observing system. In order to be successful, it is also crucial to avoid building stovepipes for data management. To that end, NOAA’s Observing System Monitoring Center (OSMC) has been tasked to create a testbed of integrated real time and delayed mode observations for the Tropical Pacific region in support of the TPOS. The observing networks included in the prototype are: Argo floats, OceanSites moorings, drifting buoys, hydrographic surveys, underway carbon observations and, of course, real time ocean measurements. In this presentation, we will discuss how the OSMC project is building the integrated data prototype using existing free and open source software. We will explore how we are leveraging successful data management frameworks pioneered by efforts such as NOAA’s Unified Access Framework project. We will also show examples of how conforming to well known conventions and standards allows for discoverability, usability and interoperability of data.
