UNDERWAY SEA SURFACE SALINITY DATA ARCHIVING PILOT PROJECT
The IOC Committee on International Oceanographic Data and Information Exchange,
Noting that the Ocean Observations Panel for Climate (OOPC) considers sea surface salinity data as critical for the study of the decadal and longer timescale variations associated with deep ocean overturning,
Further noting that the number of countries collecting underway sea surface salinity data and the volume of data collected within coastal and open ocean monitoring programmes are rapidly growing,
Recognizing that presently there is little international co-operation in the exchange and management of these data,
Acknowledging the need to build effective international management of these data in cooperation with data providers and users to meet the requirements for temporal and spatial sampling resolution and measurement accuracies set forth by the OOPC,
Recommends the establishment of a Pilot Project for the management of these data with the Terms of Reference as attached in the Annex to this recommendation,
Invites the IOC Executive Secretary, in consultation with the Chairmen of IODE and OOPC, to establish a Steering Group to implement and monitor progress of the Pilot Project.
Invites the IODE Member States and other interested countries collecting underway sea surface salinity data to participate in the activities of the Steering Group.
Annex to Recommendation IODE-XVI.10
Terms of Reference of the Underway Sea Surface Salinity Data Archiving Pilot Project
Objectives of the Pilot Project:
(i) To acquire, quality control, store in standard format, and disseminate the collected underway sea surface salinity data
(ii) To establish close co-operation with relevant data centres to build a database and develop data management procedures and standards
(iii) To build a comprehensive archive for USSSAL data including appropriate metadata
(iv) To develop and implement procedures for quality assessment of real time and delayed mode data based on the GTSPP experience
(v) To provide data and information on line to users in a timely fashion
(vi) To ensure safeguarding of high resolution delayed mode data
(vii) To co-operate with data collectors to improve the data acquisition systems and to provide information on the data they provide
(viii) To maintain close links with other data collection and management programmes such as JCOMM and SOOP
(ix) To prepare proposals for the archiving of all potentially available underway data types
The Participants in the Pilot Project:
The Pilot Project will be carried out by a Steering Group composed of, inter alia, IFREMER / SISMER (France), MEDS (Canada), BSH (Germany), BODC (UK), ICES (Denmark), NCMR / HNODC (Greece), WDC for Oceanography - Silver Spring (USA).
Work Plan and Timing:
The Steering Group will work by correspondence (e-mail). The Group will report to the IODE Officers and to the IODE Committee.
Proposal Surface Salinity Project/TRACKOB by R. Keeley (MEDS)