PICES Technical Committee on Data Exchange

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1999

REPORT OF THE TECHNICAL COMMITTEE ON DATAEXCHANGE

The Chairman, Mr. Robin Brown, opened the meeting on October 9, 1999, and welcomed the participants (TCODE Endnote 1). The meeting continued on October 13, 1999. The meeting agenda was reviewed and a new business item (Global International Waters Assessment - a UNEP program) was added (TCODE Endnote 2).

Improvements to PICES TCODE web pages were discussed. The Committee proposed to expand the representation of western Pacific data sources (including NEAR-GOOS).

The PICES Inventory of Long-Term Time Series has been incorporated into the Bering Sea Biophysical Metadatabase and conform to the FGDC metadata standards as far as descriptor fields. All 90-95 records were transferred to the metadatabase without any problems. Many records have fields with no data, so TCODE members may be contacted in the near future to assist with this work.

Some work has been done on promoting the PICES TCODE web pages through the use of metatags. However, search results are uneven. More should be done with reciprocal links in association with which PICES is affiliated.

The possibility of creating a "mirror" of the PICES web site was discussed. Different working hours of PICES countries sometimes can be seen in a busy web server. Having a mirror site could be of use to PICES members on the west side of the Pacific. In cooperation with TINRO, TCODE will attempt to establish a mirror site on a test basis.

Members suggested that the PICES TCODE page should link directly to the important NEAR-GOOS home pages in Japan, Russia, China and Korea.

To increase the useful content on the PICES web page, TCODE suggested that the Secretariat explore ways to allow members to add materials to the web site in a dynamic way. The Secretariat is small and this strategy distributes the work and permits a large user-base to contribute useful content.

The MONITOR Task Teams asked for support to make the results of a survey of existing monitoring programs in the North Pacific available on the PICES web site. The MONITOR report is approaching completion. TCODE will be asked to assist in making this information available on the web. The monitoring station/transect list will be examined to see if all entries are listed in the Inventory of Long Time Series and the Inventory will be updated as required.

TCODE did not have any contact with the BASS Task Team on this issue. TCODE reviewed and updated information and links on research vessel schedules, but Dr. Toshio Nagai showed that research vessel cruise plans, derived from National Oceanographic Program documents submitted to IOC, had not been updated for several years. Japan was a notable exception to these observations.

No contact was made from the MODEL Task Team to TCODE regarding this activity.

Mr. Brown presented an outline of the National Biogeochemical database that is under development in Canada. Further details are available at http://www.meds-sdmm.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/snap/Default.htm.

Mr. Ling Tong reported on the China GLOBEC-I project in the Yellow Sea and GLOBEC-II project in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea. A database is now being constructed for the China GLOBEC-II project. The China NEAR-GOOS database (real-time and delayed-mode) is now operational.

Dr. Nagai presented a summary of data management activities at JODC, including:

Dr. Kee-Soo Nam reported on data management activities for NEAR-GOOS, including software developed to gather and serve oceanographic data automatically in real-time from several countries in the NEAR-GOOS area, all in a homepage format at http://near-goos.kordi.re.kr/.

Dr. Igor D. Rostov provided a summary of data management activities at POI (Pacific Oceanological Institute) and discussed three presentations that will be made at the Data Visualization Workshop on Oct. 12 and 14. In addition, Dr. Rostov reported on the new POI homepage and the data sources available there.

NEAR-GOOS activities involved IOC/ WESTPAC training on data management, and development of POI NEAR-GOOS delayed mode database. There is also a web site at http://www.pacific.marine.su/cdsdb/ngpdb/.

POI data sets are regularly passed to NODC and WDC-B for international exchange. Software to access this information has been made available.

Dr. Nikolay A. Rykov reported that FERHRI (Far Eastern Regional Hydrometeorological Institute) has a website http://www.hydromet.com where information can be found on various datasets managed by the institute.

FERHRI is involved in several international projects using PALACE floats. A Regional Oceanographic Data Center (RODC) was created to collect, store, access and distribute data on the Russian Far East oceans. RODC is involved in the GODAR project. Data (~90,000 ocean stations) will be available on the open ocean (no marginal seas) through the World Data Center.

A new Russian Federal Program (1999-2007) “An Integrated System of Information about the World Ocean” was introduced.

Dr. Igor I. Shevchenko said that the Fisheries Committee of the Russian Federation will establish the infrastructure necessary to make biological information available. A monitoring system will be put into place that will track fishing vessels using satellite systems.

No report.

The agenda and opening session of the Workshop on the application of scientific visualization to marine ecosystem analysis were reviewed. The session was well attended and talks were very interesting. The Committee felt that this was a valuable topic area and this workshop should be repeated periodically, perhaps every two years, at PICES Annual Meetings.

A joint meeting of WG 13 with TCODE and JGOFS North Pacific Task Team is planned prior to the next PICES Annual Meeting to deal with exchange of CO₂ data and metadata, and to design and organize a CO₂ Data Synthesis Workshop in 2001. TCODE strongly supported this activity and has included this as a high priority item in the TCODE work plan for 1999/2000.

The importance of various GOOS components (NEAR-GOOS, GOOS-LMR, GOOS-HOTO, GOOS Coastal Module, GOOS Climate module) was discussed. TCODE feels that these are very important activities for PICES and recommends that PICES play an active role in planning and implementation of GOOS. The Committee noted that the NEAR-GOOS project has provided an excellent example of data management and data exchange, amongst four nations with different languages and very different communication and computing infrastructure.

The International JGOFS project has decided to use the Global Change Master Directory (http://gcmd.nasa.gov/) as a repository of JGOFS metadata records.

Very little progress is apparent at the GLOBEC International Project Office (IPO) on this issue. They are still in the process of staffing the IPO who will coordinate this activity. TCODE will continue to correspond with the IPO on this issue.

The Committee approved the suggestion to move the Science Board Symposium to the first day.

If there is a decision to emphasize the communication of science more through posters, then the status of posters within PICES has to be raised. Posters should be placed in an enclosed area that is used for collective coffee breaks, luncheons or socials. At the same time, PICES should explore the opportunity for "electronic posters", software demonstrations, etc. PICES should institute an award for best poster, software demo, home page demo etc. to encourage scientists to participate.

The consensus among members seems to be that international travel opportunities for students are limited, if not non-existent, and that a young scientist travel fund is a good idea.

The Committee reviewed the Standing List of International Organizations and Programs and made some suggestions for additions and rankings. This issue will be discussed at the Science Board meeting.

The Committee agreed with the Science Board proposal regarding changes that should be made to the Handbook for Chairmen and Convenors (definition of Advisory Panel, improving Best Presentation Award advice, number of approved keynote speakers, etc.).

The Committee reviewed the list of possible topics for future Science Board Symposia. No additional topics were received from TCODE members.

Dr. Thomas C. Royer volunteered to act as TCODE representative for this Committee.

TCODE strongly supported this proposal by Drs. Bernard A. Megrey and Vidar G. Wespestad. Canada is pursuing various "ships of opportunity" programs with Japan and China. Russia has strong interests in this topic as well.

Dr. Megrey reported on his meeting with officials from the Global International Waters Assessment (GIWA) Project. They are looking for "super-regional" partners in this activity and one of the "super-regions" is a very good match for PICES. The Committee recommends that Science Board explore this in more detail and ask the Secretariat to assemble additional information and look for possibilities and implications of establishing links with GIWA.

TCODE strongly supports this workshop (see Agenda Item 6) to be held immediately prior to PICES IX in Tsukuba, Japan). There will be a requirement to assemble inventories of CO₂ data holdings prior to this meeting. The inventory project will be led by Dr. Alex Kozyr of CDIAC, but TCODE members may be asked to assist in this phase.

The Committee will revise the content of the TCODE web pages, with a goal to improving the links to information sources on the western side of the Pacific.

The Committee will assist the MONITOR Task Team/CCCC-IP to assemble web pages describing the existing monitoring programs in the North Pacific.

The Committee would like to sponsor an "electonic poster session" to demonstrate software, databases and web pages at the next PICES Annual Meeting. Two options were discussed:

The Committee recognized that the scale and success of such a session is strongly dependent on the facilities that would be available at Hakodate, but preliminary information suggests that the venue will have highly advanced network and multimedia facilities.

The “electronic poster session” could also include demonstrations by software vendors, if there was sufficient interest.

Robin M. Brown (Chairman)*

Ling Tong*

Tatsu Kishida*

Toshio Nagai*

Yutaka Nagata

Hae-Seok Kang

Kee-Soo Nam*

Igor D. Rostov*

Nikolay A. Rykov

Igor I. Shevchenko*

Bernard A. Megrey*

Thomas C. Royer*

* TCODE Committee member