Ocean and Coastal Data Stewardship
As the ocean community looks to the next decade of ocean observations, end-to-end data management must be considered as an integral part of the design of any ocean observing system. Ocean data stewardship ensures that observations deliver the maximum service to society. Ocean data stewardship means more than mere mechanical or electronic acts of data archiving and transfer. It consists of an integrated suite of functions to preserve and realize the full value of environmental data. Data stewards and data providers need to work toward standardization of vocabularies and formats, quality and complete metadata, and making the archival and dissemination of data a part of the initial design of an observing system. These functions must be successfully implemented to ensure optimal use of oceanographic data and information, both now and in future. 1. WHY OCEAN DATA STEWARDSHIP? No single country can monitor the entire world ocean alone. Over the past decade, the international ocean community has launched a number of highly successful programs that have led to an understanding of how the Earth’s climate system and its many components function and change over time. Data from the implementation of global ocean monitoring programs, such as the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS) [1], Argo [2], and the Repeat Hydrography Program [3], have been used to document changes in the ocean heat and freshwater content, as well as changes in the acidity of the oceans. However, to understand how both the ocean and climate are changing, we must first quantify and understand past variability. Therefore, we must ensure the quality and preservation of the data that provide the historical record of Earth's changing marine environment so it can be used for operational applications and ocean climate research. Observation data are unique, irreplaceable, and collected at great cost. The acquisition, processing, preservation, quality assurance, and dissemination of coastal and ocean data by national and international data centers are key elements of curating and archiving data – what we call “Data Stewardship”. These functions are required to ensure future accessibility, readability, quality (e.g. richness, trustworthiness, etc.), and usefulness of all types of oceanographic and related ecosystem data.). National Data Centers, Data Assembly Centers, and World Data Centers (WDC) data collections and databases are a result of international data exchange and all countries and scientists benefit from this cooperation. For example, the international Global Temperature-Salinity Profile Program (GTSPP) and Global Argo Data Repository project coordinate with the US NODC/WDC World Ocean Database to archive historic, delayed-mode and real-time oceanographic profile and Argo float data and produce atlases and analysis products [4]. The importance of NODC/WDC databases, and atlases based on those databases, can be quantified: Figure 1 shows that NODC/WDC databases and products based on those databases have been cited more than 5,900 times since 1982. 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500