We document the history and progress of two international ocean data management projects. The "Global Oceanographic Data Archaeology and Rescue" project was initiated in 1993 under the auspices of the UNESCO Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC). The project has the goal of locating (archaeology) and digitizing or copying to modern electronic media (rescuing) historical (pre-1992) oceanographic data that exist in manuscript or electronic media form that are at risk of loss due to media decay. The IOC "World Ocean Database" project initiated in 2001 focuses on encouraging international data exchange for the post-1991 period and the development of regional atlases. To determine the role of the world ocean as part of earth's climate system and to develop climate system forecast and assessment capability for periods from months to decades, the international scientific community needs the most complete databases of historical oceanographic data possible. Many historical oceanographic vertical profile and plankton data sets are not available to the international community because they exist only in manuscript form. They are at risk of loss to media decay and damage. There are also data in electronic form that are not generally available and are also at risk of loss due to media degradation. This article describes a project initiated in 1993 to locate such data sets and to incorporate them into a global, comprehensive, integrated, scientifically quality-controlled database with all data in one uniform format. The "Global Oceanographic Data Archaeology and Rescue" (GODAR) project was initiated in 1993 under the auspices of the UNESCO Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC). The project has the goal of locating (archaeology) and digitizing or copying to modern electronic media (rescuing) historical (pre-1992) oceanographic data that exist in manuscript or electronic media form that are at risk of loss due to media decay or neglect. This project has resulted in a tripling of the availability of some ocean profile data types for the pre-1992 period. The IOC World Ocean Database project (initiated in the 2001) focuses on enhancing the incorporation of modern data into a global ocean profile-plankton database and the development of regional climatologies. The goal of these two projects supports the development of the most comprehensive global ocean profile-plankton databases possible. Such a database is crucial for enabling scientific progress in determining the role of the ocean as part of earth's climate system. These databases, and scientific products based on these databases, represent the infrastructure on which much ocean and climate research and assessments are now based. Specifically: a) Objective analyses of the data in these databases provide gridded climatologies that are used as initial and boundary conditions for ocean climate simulations and to verify simulations of the climate system;
['Sydney Levitus']
The UNESCO-IOC-IODE "Global Oceanographic Data Archeology and Rescue" (GODAR) Project and "World Ocean Database" Project