The Ocean Observatories Initiative: Data Access and Visualization via the Graphical User Interface

The Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI), funded by the National Science Foundation, is a broad-scale, multidisciplinary effort to transform oceanographic research by providing users with real-time access to long-term datasets from a variety of deployed physical, chemical, biological, and geological sensors. The global array component of the OOI includes four high latitude sites: Irminger Sea off Greenland, Station Papa in the Gulf of Alaska, Argentine Basin off the coast of Argentina, and Southern Ocean near coordinates 55°S and 90°W. Each site is composed of fixed moorings, hybrid profiler moorings and mobile assets, with a total of approximately 110 instruments at each site. Near real-time (telemetered) and recovered data from these instruments can be visualized and downloaded via the OOI Graphical User Interface. In this Interface, the user can visualize scientific parameters via six different plotting functions with options to specify time ranges and apply various QA/QC tests. Data streams from all instruments can also be downloaded in different formats (CSV, JSON, and NetCDF) for further data processing, visualization, and comparison to supplementary datasets. In addition, users can view alerts and alarms in the system, access relevant metadata and deployment information for specific instruments, and find infrastructure specifics for each array including location, sampling strategies, deployment schedules, and technical drawings. These datasets from the OOI provide an unprecedented opportunity to transform oceanographic research and education, and will be readily accessible to the general public via the OOI’s Graphical User Interface.