SISMER SISMER Systèmes d’Informations Scientifiques pour la Mer French NODC Contribution to IODE and New Perspectives in the frame of the Operational Oceanography prepared by Catherine MAILLARD

Summary of the presentation l Context and History l National Oceanographic Data Bank l Projects l Quality Assurance l New developments for Real Time Data Management l Human Support and Facilities l Conclusion, Perspectives, New Challenges for Data Management

IFREMER â IFREMER (the French Institute of Research and Exploitation of the Sea), a public institute of industrial and commercial nature, created by a decree of 5 June 1984, is the only French body with an exclusively maritime vocation. â It is placed under the joint authority of the Ministries of Research and Technology, of Fisheries and Equipment and Transport. â Annual budget : one billion French Francs, â 1700 executives, researchers, engineers, seamen, technicians and administrative staff, â 72 laboratories and research departments, located in 24 stations and centres along the metropolitan coast and overseas, â 7 vessels, 2 manned submersibles, equipped with scientific instruments.

History of the Data Centre ã SISMER (Systèmes d'Informations Scientifiques pour la Mer) was created in 1990, and since 1997 belongs to the Informatics and Marine Data Department (IDM) of IFREMER, the main French government research agency devoted to ocean research and exploitation. ã SISMER is the Designated National Oceanographic Data Centre for France (French NODC) for the International Oceanographic Data Exchange programme (IODE) of UNESCO Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission, following the former Bureau National des Données Océaniques (BNDO). This national data banking activity dates from 1968, and covers the fields of marine physics, chemical, underway geophysics and general information on French oceanographic cruises and data sets. ã SISMER contributes to data management structures of several national and international scientific projects, especially in the frame of the European MAST programme.

IFREMER IDM Department and Facilities ã Brest Services l RIC : network, archiving system and centralised facilities l ISIB : information system engineering in Brest l SISMER : data centre l COM : Oceano-meteo services ã Centralised Facilities in Brest l Brest centre mainframe - RDBS & WWW servers l Central archiving backup system l Network Administration l RDBS + GIS Software Administration ã Distributed Facilies l SUN UNIX Work stations l DOS personal computers + Office software l Software : MATLAB, Expert QC software, Loading/Extracting Data l CDROM engraving

MISSIONS ã to design and operate scientific information systems and databases in the domain of the sea; ã sets the standards of quality to be respected for data storage; ã maintains an inventory of information systems and databases, the responsible scientists and rules for their availability; ã represents IFREMER within national and international authorities concerned with the management of sea data; ã provides training and transfer of knowledge within its field of competence.

National Data Banks and Projects u Catalogues - Meta-Databases l MAST-EURONODIM - European cooperative network for oceanographic data & information management u Geophysical Data Bank l DORSALES/RIDGE u Physical and Chemical Data Bank l MAST-MEDAR/MEDATLAS II l MAST-MTP II/MATER l MAST-OCTOPUS - Tomographie Acoustique l MAST-ROBLINKS - Propagation Acoustique u Related with the (Pre-)Operational Oceanography l TOGA/WOCE/CLIVAR/GTSPP l MAST-MFSPP- Mediterranean Forecasting System l MAREL l CORIOLIS u Reference Data - Data Products from other data centres

MEDI/EDMED Data sets Summaries Data sets dispersed in the French scientific community è 236 data sets summaries è from 86 laboratories or centres

National Geophysical Data Bank l Vertical Bathymetry : 353 Cruises l Multibeam Bathymetry : 278 Cruises l Gravity : 213 Cruises l Magnetism : 256 Cruises l imagery : 64 Cruises Related Project : DORSALES-RIDGE

DORSALES-RIDGE

National Physical and Chemical Data Bank l CTD LR l Bottle Casts l Current Meter Time Series 1893 l Thermistor Chain Time Series 131 Related Projects : MEDAR/MEDATLAS, MATER, OCTOPUS, ROBLINKS

MTPII-MATER MAss Transfer and Ecosystem Response (MAS3-CT ) 3 Regional Data Centres and an Animation Task 105 Oceanographic Cruises 126 Moorings

MAST- MEDAR/MEDATLASII Mediterranean Data Archaeology and Rescue of Temperature, Salinity and Bio-chemical Parameters Collaborations and Scientific Advisers : GODAR Project - WDC-A, NODC-Croatia, DNA Tunisia, DNA Georgia EUROGOOS, MEDGOOS, IODE Network

MEDAR/MEDATLAS II OBJECTIVES AND METHODOLOGY 1. to complete the data-void areas in the Eastern and Southern parts of the Mediterranean Sea and Black Sea with new observations, through a wide co- operation of the Mediterranean countries; the core parameters identified as necessary to archive for the ecosystem following up and modelling are : 2. to make available comparable and compatible data sets of temperature, salinity and bio-chemical profiles issuing from different sources, by using a common protocol for formatting and quality checking based on the available preliminary knowledge of the core parameters distribution and the internationally agreed standards; 3. to prepare value added products including climatological gridded statistics and maps that will be useful for the understanding and modelling of the Mediterranean and Black Sea by using efficient and robust objective analysis techniques; 4. to extend the protocol for data qualification to each stage of the data processing; 5. to facilitate the access to the archived data and enhance the data for various scientific, educational, industrial and environmental needs, through electronic publishing on widely disseminated media and promotion.

MFSPP Mediterranean Forecasting Pilot Project (MAS3-CT ) 1784 Xbt Model predictions with Assimilation of RT in situ data from VOS, from multidisciplinary mooring in Aegean Sea, satellite and meteorological data

Loading and Extraction Tools l ON LINE Data Extraction l Input interface + dedicated software for automatic file indexation

Publication Tools ã Automatic edition of WWW Catalogues from RDBS : htql ã Paperprint catalogues and Mailing ã Data products on Cdrom é data selection through several criterions including geographical areas

Data Dissemination l 170 data request served by year about 100 information request by year l Cruise catalogue and WWW server : about 200 hit /day Customers : l IFREMER 25% l French public organisms (out of IFREMER) 40% l private firms 5% l Foreign organisms 30%

COASTAL MONITORING - MAREL RT data freely available on WWW : Seine estuary and offshore Brest Bay South-east Mediterranean coast (in development)

Global Subsurface Data Centre TOGA/WOCE/CLIVAR/GTSPP l French Component of International Data structures l ARGO l CLIVAR/GTSPP l CORIOLIS/ARGO, MFSPP l profiles of temperature (2000) - Mirror site with US-NODC/WDC-A from MFSPP l Automatic and Visual QC l WWW Interface to access data

CORIOLIS data center functions Interopérability with argo data base catalogue - archive gts mail mailing lists web favorite medium control data quality control technical monitoring of equipments collection mail internet gts cd-rom paper... dissemination public / private products graphics and charts statistics analyses cd-rom or other support on request quality insurance for exploitationhardware & software management - backup

Real Time T & TS profiles from PROVOR floats 448 Xbt & CTD from RV 284 ar g o s CORIOLIS RT Data

PROVOR Profiler data & products availability

Reference Data l Gridded Climatologies... ( Levitus, MODB, MEDATLAS, Atlantique T. Reynaud) l Topographic Data (ETOP5, TOPO_2mn, Gravi_2mn, traits de cote, IGN) l Tide Predictions - SHOM l Data products on CDroms & diskettes received at SISMER í Dissemination on Internet or Intranet depending on copyright

FORMATS ã Meta-data : RDBS ã Small-medium size files : autodescriptive ASCII (MEDATLAS) ã Large volume files : NetCDF

Quality Assurance QC0 : Check the format and the completeness of the information QC1 : Check the location and date QC2 : Check the data points References - Standards l CIEM-Marine Data Management working Group (CIEM) l UNESCO/COI/IODE : International Oceanographic Data & Information Exchange

QC1 Control of the location and Date - Data collected in station

QC1: Control of the location and Date - Time series on fixed mooring

QC2 - Control of the Data points

Current Objectives of Data Management ã to insure perennial safeguarding, access and promotion of the national data holdings ã to make available long time series of coherent and comparable observations of the same type ã to contribute to a better exploitation of the oceanographic work among scientific, engineering educational and decision maker community ã to have access to foreign data sets through data exchange ã to assist the scientists in preparing projects

New Needs & Challenges  FURTHER NEEDS EXPRESSED BY THE USERS  Access to multidisciplinary data, especially biochemical data  Archives of large volumes  Real time or near RT data  Convince the scientists to decrease the time lag between data collection and data submission to data centres - avoid to the data to become archaeological  Quality data to get compatibility and comparability within long times series  Preparation of data products : gridded fields, thematic databases...  DATA MANAGERS SHOULD IMPROVE THEIR EXPERTISE  for automatic data collection, Data Centres should take in charge part of the scientific validation  to prepare value added products easy to process by non-specialists  NEED FOR INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION  to get information on data availability  to establish and develop standards - Reference Manuals  to share the tasks during international projects