1. OceanSITES - Putting eyes and ears in the deep ocean

OceanSITES is a worldwide system of long-term, deepwater reference stations measuring dozens of variables and monitoring the full depth of the ocean from air-sea interactions down to 5,000 meters. It is a network of stations or observatories measuring all aspects of the ocean’s surface and depths using advanced sensors and telecommunications systems, observations cover meteorology, important climate variables physical oceanography, geophysical, transport of water, biogeochemistry, carbon cycle, and biogeochemical parameters. These measurements complement satellite imagery and other in-situ data by adding the dimension of time and extending the depthdimension (all the way to the sea floor).

For more information on the existing and planned network please refer to the documents on OceanSITES brochure (5 Mb PDF) provides more detail on the mission of the project.

Figure 1. OCEANSITES VISION MAP

  1. Benefits and aims of OceanSITES

The benefits of being part of OceanSITES are severalfold. OceanSITES is now the officially recognized timeseries component of the sustained Global Ocean Observing System, with a significantly increased role and responsibility, so has a lot of high-level recognition and visibility. Through the JCOMM mechanism, and via POGO, Ocean-United and GEO there may be national commitments to the GOOS and thus to OceanSITES.

Via the OceanSITES website we give visibility to all the sites and operators in the system, and we will start to share products and indicators and assess data users’ requirements more closely, which helps to justify and advocate maintaining long timeseries efforts. OceanSITES will further promote and facilitate the sharing of effort, funding, platforms, best practices, experience, hardware, and ship-time across disciplines and countries. Easy and unified data access via the OceanSITES data system will assure that the data from all sites are actually used. Plus, by subscribing to the OceanSITES data format and process you will help to set a standard for ocean timeseries data and metadata which does not exist yet.

Since 1999, the international OceanSITES community has shared both data and costs in order to capitalize on the enormous potential of this network of observations.

OceanSITES aims to continue to expand the existing components, putting in place standardised and agreed upon data management systems to develop more sophisticated sensors to measure more complex properties of the oceans and especially allow us to quickly enhance understanding of changes in the global ocean.

Its key goals include :

-Supporting a well planned, reliable and consistent network, developed with consideration of regional requirements and the nature of the ocean, as well as other observing systems in the open ocean.

-Taking responsibility for monitoring of the success of this network.

-Focussing on measurements that will give well resolved data. Aiming at high temporal resolution (down to hourly or synoptic scales) or consistent sampling frequencies ,and ensuring good sampling at depth

-Ensuring continuity in the location of measurement. Sites or programs contributing to OceanSITES would preferably be only Eulerian observatories (e.g. not including hydrography, ADCP sections, etc.), but this is not essential as long as some stabilityand consistency is achieved in location

-Ensuring sustainability and continuity in the collection of data. Process studies or stand alone research projects could not be considered part of the network.

  • The site would preferably have been sustained for many yearsalready.
  • OceanSITES must be sustainable in the future. Long-term funding support should be secured or being sought. This includes the full cost of technology and human effort and ongoing commitments.

-Developing and committing to agreed upon data formats and guidelines for quality control

  • Ensuring a commitment to free and open access to data and adherence to the OceanSITES Data Policy and Data Access Guide (discussed below in section 4c Data Management).
  • Ideally OceanSITES would allow rapid distribution ofgood quality data (on the web, via the OceanSITES Global Data Assembly Centres and via real time telecommunications systems) for use in meteorological and oceanographic models, by the OceanSITES team, data users , the broader scientific community, and the general public.
  • Providing advice and support to sites or observatories not distributing data, to assist them in doing so and therefore allowing them to become part of the network.
  • Providing advice and coordination for sites providing non-real time data

-Making sites interdisciplinary. Existing sites need to be able to be extended to record a host of physical, chemical and biological variables, enabling cross-discipline comparison. The technology used should also be continually improved and made more hardy, as well as being the best available (i.e. fit for purpose)

-Sharing and documenting Best Practice s and guidelines

-Facilitating a sense of community and creating a well supported coordination mechanism.

  1. What does it mean to be part of the OceanSITES network?

Certain requirements need to be fulfilled to build an observing system network and to bring together otherwise separate people and research efforts.

4a. Scientific requirement for being part of OceanSITES

Can we summarise the Common scientific goals

4b. Documentation and metadata management

All OceanSITES are documented in Whitepapers which are made available on the OceanSITES web page. OceanSITES participants prepare these documents and to provideupdates as required.

The documents can be seen on the website, broken down by ocean basin and site.

Ocean Basin documents are available at the following websites:

In order to properly catalogue and share data successfully via the Global Data Assembly Centres (one in USA and one in France), each site also needs to have a metadata form, which is utilised by the GDACs to make data sets available (on the web and in real-time for the meteorological and oceanographic communities) and is vital for users of OceanSITES data.

4c. Data Management

The OceanSITES community is developing standard practices and processes.

This will require that all operators of sites, data managersnominate a Data Assembly Centers to work with and that the representative from that Data Assembly Center work with one of the GDACs to:

  1. make the data flow, both in real-time and in post-recovery mode via the agreed channels
  2. make their data available in the approved OceanSITES NetCDF format.The OceanSITES data management team has developed an implementation of NetCDF for the data sets. Please consult the user manual (v1.0 pdf) for details
  3. follow the agreed procedures. Sample data sets are available as well as tools to verify the formats
  4. applyappropriate data quality control
  5. manage and share metadata

Please refer to the “Data Policy” and “Data Access” documents conforming to the internationally agreed CLIVAR principles and customs (as in the Argo project). The OceanSITES Project Office and the GDACs are able to provide assistance with data management.

4d. Participation in the OceanSITES community

The OceanSITES community is lead by two Co-chairs, Uwe Send and Robert Weller and comprises a Steering Committee, a Data Management Team plus a Project Office. The teams have regular meetings and communicate between the meetings using email distribution lists. The site operators and data managers who are currently part of the OceanSITES network are actively involved in the development and enhancement of OceanSITES as a whole.

Accordingly, for site operators who are not currently involved in OceanSITES, but think they could participate, we would beopen toyour contribution. To that end you are invited to contact
cochairsoceansites.org to express your interest in being part of the OceanSITES network, giving details about your site and how you would like to be involved.

Annex 1 Metadata required for each site

The following details need to be provided and kept up-to-date for each site. The OceanSITES project office maintains this information on behalf of the Steering Committee and the Data Managment Team.

Information needed for each site:

Site and project name:

Position (coordinates):

Categories: e.g. air-sea flux mooring, biogeochemical observatory, transport section

Safety distance for ship operations:

Short description:

Platforms in use:

Variables measured and depths of the measurements :

Start date of the timeseries

Service interval (if mooring), sampling interval (if ship-based):

Scientific rationale: (including up to two diagrams if needed)

Groups / P.I.s /labs /countries involved or responsible:

Status: e.g. operating, planned, interrupted, being serviced...

Technology: mooring (surface/subsurface), glider, cable, ship-based, data telemetry

Data policy: which data are available in real-time, which post-recovery data are immediately available publicly, which data need longer QC, which data are not wanted on the GTS, etc

Data management:

Data Assembly Center (DAC) chosen or suggested/desired

Real Time data management and quality control

Delayed-mode data management and quality control

Societal value / Users / customers: in case some users/customers are already clearly identified or even routinely using the data

Contact Person:

for enquiry about addition of instruments or sensors to the site or for possible ancillary measurements during cruises to the site:

for information about the site:

for information about the data:

Links / Web-sites:

for Project information:

for data access :

Updated by: Name (Month Year)

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