The British Oceanographic Data Centre (BODC)

Joseph Proudman Building6 Brownlow Street

Liverpool, L3 5DA, UK

History – 1

1969 British Oceanographic Data Service (BODS) created: To act as the UK’s National Oceanographic Data Centre (NODC) To participate in the international exchange of data as part of the

Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission's (IOC's) network of national data centres

1975 BODS transferred to Bidston Observatory as part of the newly formed Institute of Oceanographic Sciences

1976 Became the data banking section of the Marine Information and Advisory Service (MIAS)

Funded for 4 years by the Department of Energy and Industry To manage the data collected from the UK Offshore Operators

Association (UKOOA) network of weather ships, oil rigs and large-scale data buoys

Continued this role and assembly of archives of wave, moored current meter, offshore tide gauge and CTD data until late 1980s

1989 Restructured to form BODC with a mission to 'operate as a world-class data centre in support of UK marine science‘. Hosted by Proudman Oceanographic Lab.

History – 2

• In the late 1980s BODC pioneered a start to finish approach to marine data management. This includes:• Assisting in the collection of data at sea • Work up and quality control of data • Assembling the data for use by the principal investigators • The publication of the data sets on CDROM

• Became the international centre (on behalf of IOC and the IHO) for creating, maintaining and publishing the General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans (GEBCO) Digital Atlas

• In 2004 relocated to the University of Liverpool campus

• Funded primarily by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)

What is BODC’s role?

• Cover core functions of NERC’s Designated Data Centre for marine science and act as the UK’s National Marine Data Centre

• A National Facility for storing and distributing data concerning the marine environment

• Host for the Marine Environmental Data and Information Network (MEDIN)

• Sole responsibility is data management

• Starting premise - data must be secure and readily usable in the long term without reference to the originator

BODC deal with biological, chemical, physical and geophysical data and its databases contain measurements of approx. 10,000 different variables

Its ~40 staff includes a wide range of research scientists who have direct experience of marine data collection and analysis

They work alongside information technology specialists to ensure that data are documented and stored for current and future use

BODC wish to thank Paul Hampton who kindly supplied the Zooplankton photographs

BODC Project Portfolio

Core activities• Laboratory liaison (NERC Marine Laboratories)

• National Oceanographic Data Bank

• Enquiry service and on-line delivery of data

• International (IODE, GEBCO, CLIVAR, GLOSS, Argo)

• IT development and support

Projects• NERC funded: RAPID Climate Change; AMT, Marine

Productivity, Autosub under Ice, SOLAS, etc.

• NERC DataGrid

• National Tide Gauge Network

• EU projects: SeaDataNet, Humboldt, SIMORC, TRANSFER

• GEOTRACES International Data Assembly Centre

Proudman Oceanographic

Laboratory

Plymouth Marine

Laboratory

Scottish Association for Marine Science

Laboratory Liaison Responsibilities

• Provide a dedicated and skilled independent resource and associated infrastructure to enable NERC marine centres to secure and access their data long-term

• Meet NERC’s and the centres’ legal obligations under the Freedom of Information (FOI) and Environmental Information Regulations (EIRs)

National Oceanography Centre, Southampton

British Antarctic Survey

Sea MammalResearch Unit

Liverpool Bay Coastal Observatory

• To understand a coastal sea's response both to natural forcing and to the consequences of human activity

• Integrate (near) real-time measurements with coupled models into a pre-operational coastal prediction system

GTSGlobal Telecommunication System

SMRU – Freely available real-time data

users

British Oceanographic Data Centre

ARGOS

Management approach• Liaison with project PIs/Steering Group before project is

approved and throughout life-time of project.• Costing of data management including work-up of data

if required• Work package management plans

NERC Directed Mode and Consortia

BODC provide full data management for project lifetime

Data Distribution• Project data hub – short term• Final product e.g. CD/DVD of data, on-line

Data Quality Control and Archiving

Data Tracking Let Oracle know about

the data, e.g. Time Series Inventory

Archiving Original DataData arriving at BODC are securely archived

Compiling MetadataMetadata describing the data are inserted into various Oracle

tables

Data Restrictions Appropriate data access

restrictions are set up and documented

DocumentationComprehensive

documentation are produced to describe the

data

CheckingFiles and metadata are checked to ensure they

conform to strict standards

ReformattingData are converted into

a common standard format (NetCDF subset)

Archiving Final DataFinal versions of the

files are archived in the database by the DBA

ScreeningData are viewed and

quality controlled through flagging. Data values are NOT altered

Data DistributionData are made available

by the appropriate method, such as web

delivery services

Flow Chart summarising BODC’s data processing & quality control

Screening of profile and time series data

• Visual screening on high speed graphics workstation using BODC’s graphics editor EdSerplo

• EdSerplo enables the display of multiple parameters and rapid zooming

• Suspect & null values are flagged using a one-byte character. Other flags may be used to indicate an interpolated value or instrument saturation

Providing access to data

• Little point in data management unless the data are used

• Direct contact requests

Telephone: 0151 795 4884 Email: enquiries@bodc.ac.uk

• BODC’s CD-ROMs - successful delivery mechanism for project data

• Online data inventories and catalogues

• Online data delivery systems

• BODC Web Services

• Download interface software

• Near-real time data via sub-webs

Online data delivery

Users expect to search for, view and receive data via the internet

• User friendly systems with GIS interfaces

• Data automatically updated every evening

• Rapidly moving to deliver all data this way

• Over 55,000 “series”• Still support the “personal”

request service

Example: searching the database

noc_nodb_series.kml

Example: searching the database

Example: searching the database

National: MERMAN and Tide Gauge Network

Marine Environment Monitoring and Assessment (MERMAN)

• UK’s mandatory monitoring requirements under OSPAR Convention

• EC directives and national assessments

• Contaminants measured in water, sediment and biota; biological effects

• BODC acts as the Data Manager

• Annual transfer of data to ICES

National Tide Gauge Network• Set up as a result of severe flooding along the

east coast of England in 1953

• Owned and funded by the EA

• Remote monitoring, data retrieval, processing and quality control

• Archive to provide long time series of reliable and accurate sea levels

• Data dissemination for scientific use

Marine Environmental Data and Information Network (MEDIN)

• Making it easier to source and access marine data

• Single point of access to all relevant marine data/information

• Robust network of definitive integrated Data Archiving Centres

• Providing secure, long term curation for valuable UK marine assets

• Working with UK government to implement the UK Marine Monitoring and Assessment Strategy

• Supporting implementation of the Marine Bill

• Helping partners to deal with international data requirements, e.g. INSPIRE

• Improving mechanisms to facilitate international data exchange (including contributing to global data bases)

• Saving partners time and money

International: GEBCO, GLOSS and Argo

General Bathymetric Chart of the Ocean (GEBCO)

• Host Digital Atlas Manager• Distribution of GEBCO Digital

Atlas and gridded bathymetry

Global Sea Level Observing System (GLOSS)

• Delayed-mode data centre • Station Information Handbook • Member of expert group

Argo profiling floats• Near-real-time processing• Delayed mode quality control• Southern Ocean Regional Centre

International: POGO Research Cruise Database

• Partnership for Observation of the Global Oceans (POGO)

• Length > 60 metres, certified for open ocean research

• 150 - 200 research vessels, operated by 50 institutes

• For 2008 - information received for over 450 cruises from: Australia (28), Belgium (38), China (3), France (34), Germany (68), Japan (44), Netherlands (17), Norway (38), Sweden (18), UK (21), USA (153)

• New EU EUROFLEETS project

International responsibilities: IOC & ICES

• … facilitate and promote the exchange of all marine data and information…

• BODC is one of over 60 National Oceanographic Data Centres

• Member/chair of expert teams or steering groups

• Part of data and information management working group

• Cooperation and provision of advice

• Provision of data