PICES XII Annual Report on Data Management Activities - Canada
1. Who is responsible for what?
Environment Canada (includes the Meteorological Service
of Canada)
• Climate data
The National
Climate Data and Information Archive, operated and maintained by Environment
Canada, contains official climate and weather
observations for Canada. Climate elements, such as temperature, precipitation,
relative humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind speed, wind direction,
visibility, cloud types, cloud heights and amounts, soil temperature,
evaporation, solar radiation and sunshine as well as occurrences of
thunderstorms, hail, fog or other weather phenomena are warehoused in a digital
database. Access to selected portions of this data, as well as related products
such as CD-ROMs and climate normals and averages are
available on this web site. Information regarding obtaining extremes, monthly
summaries, microfilm, microfiche, paper documents and technical documents, is
also available.
http://www.
climate, weatheroffice.ee.gc.ca/Welcome_e. html
• Surface Water Data
Surface water
quantity data has been collected and archived in Canada since the middle of the
nineteenth century. National Surface Water Data Archive contains daily,
monthly, and/or instantaneous information for streamflow,
water level, suspended sediment concentration, sediment
particle size, and sediment load data for over 2900 active stations and some 5100
discontinued sites across Canada.
http://www.climate.weatheroffice.ec.gc.ca/rel
arch/index e.html
Fisheries and Oceans Canada
• Fisheries data and status of stocks
Fisheries and
Oceans Canada is responsible for information on the abundance and condition of
commercially-fished stocks in Canada. Summary information for the Pacific
Region of DFO is available from the Regional Data Unit.
http://www-sci.pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/sa/Commercial/default_e.htm
Additional
information is available from the DFO National Statistics Data Unit. http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/communic/statistics/stat_e.htm
The Pacific Scientific Advice
Review Committee (PSARC) provides advice about fish stock and habitat status as
well as potential biological consequences of fisheries management actions and
natural events. PSARC issues publicly available Stock Status Reports (SSRs), Habitat Status Reports (HSRs), Ocean Status Reports (OSRs),
Research Documents, and Proceedings Series (Advisory Documents). These
documents focus more on the analysis of data, rather than just presentation of
the original measurements.
http://www-sci.pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/sci/psarc/default_e.htm
• Physical, Chemical and Biological
Oceanographic Measurements
The Marine
Environmental Data Service (MEDS) acts as the national oceanographic data
centre for Canada. MEDS' mandate is to manage and archive ocean data collected
by DFO, or acquired through national and international programmes
conducted in ocean areas adjacent to Canada, and to disseminate data, data
products, and services to the marine community in accordance with the policies
of the Department. MEDS is the main source for ocean profile data (including
Argo), drifting buoys data and oceanographic data from the moored buoy network.
http://www.meds-sdmm.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/meds/Databases/Data_e.htm
The original
data holding for the Pacific Region of DFO are located at the Institute of
Ocean Sciences.
http://www-sci.pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/osap/data/SearchTools/SearchProfiles
e.asp
• Ocean currents
Original
records from moored current meters are maintained at the Institute of Ocean
Sciences.
http://www-sci.pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/osap/data/SearchTools/SearchMoorings
e.asp
• Contaminants
Information
on contaminant levels in sediments, water and tissues is maintained in the
National Contaminants Information System (NCIS).
http://www.meds-sdmm.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/meds/Prog_Nat/NCIS/homemain_e.htm
• Tides and Water levels
These data
are also maintained at MEDS.
http://www.meds-sdmin.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/meds/Databases/TWL/TWL
e.htm
• Satellite Images
Inventories of satellite images
for the North East Pacific can be viewed at:
http://www-sci.pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/osap/data/SearchTools/SearchSatellites_e.asp
2. New Developments
The most
exciting new development in ocean data management in Canada revolves around new
cabled observatory projects - VENUS and NEPTUNE. These two projects will
produce high volumes of oceanographic and geophysical data using undersea
cables. The projects (VENUS is funded and an announcement on NEPTUNE is
expected shortly) are funded in the university system, rather than the
government department system. Given the high data volume and diversity of data
times, these projects will require a much more sophisticated approach to data
management, distribution and archival than is normal in the traditional
data-volume limited world of oceanographic and fisheries science. The project
plans to enlist the services and expertise of the Canadian Astrophysics Data
Centre, which is part of the National Research Centre's
Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics (http://cadcwww.hia.nrc.ca/).
Information
on the VENUS and NEPTUNE projects in Canada is available at:
VENUS: http://www.venus.uvic.ca/#PC
NEPTUNE: http://www.neptunecanada.com/
3. Challenges
No discussion
of data management is complete without a review of the challenges to improved
data management. These challenges include:
• Establishing standardized methods and
the associate metadata
• “upgrading”/annotating legacy data
with the appropriate metadata
• re-formatting legacy data
• performing quality control on legacy
data
• overcoming Principal Investigator
reluctance to make data broadly available
prepared by:
Robin Brown
TCODE representative
Canada