Piloting Tool for Better Ocean Observing in the Gulf of Mexico.

More and more profiling vehicle observing platforms are used to sample the subsurface water column and more and more realization is current, that real-time information when piloting the vehicles is key to accomplish successful missions. GANDALF, the Gulf AUV Network and Data Archiving Long-term Storage Facility (https://gandalf.gcoos.org) offer such a service. It is an AUV piloting portal for operators in the Gulf of Mexico at no cost. All that is needed by the operator is to upload the vehicle data files in GANDALF and the portal real-time services are triggered. The operators have immediate access to vehicle positioning information via a map-based interface and real-time publication quality plots of flight and science sensors. GANDALF is also equipped with observational layers and several model outputs that can be individually displayed on the base map as an additional service to operators. Post-operation services are also available in GANDALF. Mission files, processed data files, and Google Earth KMZ files are permanently archived on the GANDALF server. Archived files can easily be used to stimulate a deployment and recreate a mission to help future planing. What is more, during a deployment, IOOS-compliant NetCDF files of profiles are created and are ready to submit to the IOOS Glider DAC so data are registered and available to the larger community. There is a vision for the future to improve GANDALF services. To list a few, GANDALF plans to support more vehicle types, get live plots working, automate NetCDF files submission process, add more observational and model layers, and model predictive waypoints. GANDALF listen to the operators and give them what they want. If you can describe your piloting need GANDALF can possibly accommodate you. More users means more test cases and better tool which is part of what is needed for better ocean observing.