An Ocean Blueprint for the 21st Century - California Ocean ...

Interactions between private companies, the academic community and the NOAA-Navypartnership could produce a wide range of general and tailored forecast and warningproducts. An interface between national forecasters at the federal level, the regional oceaninformation programs, and the Regional Associations of the national IOOS would alsohelp identify ocean and coastal information products of particular value at the regionaland local levels.Recommendation 28–2The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the U.S. Navy should establishan ocean and coastal information management and communications partnership to generateinformation products relevant to national, regional, state, and local operational needs.The NOAA-Navy partnership should:• prioritize products and forecasts based on input from regional ocean informationprograms, Ocean.IT, Ocean.US, the Regional Associations of the IOOS, and other federal,regional, state, and local users.• base products and forecasts on all available data sources.• support the generation of new models and forecasts in collaboration with Ocean.IT,academia, and the private sector.NOAA will need to develop a variety of dissemination techniques and educate potentialusers about information access and applications to ensure that the products producedin cooperation with the Navy fulfill their potential.Raw DataAlthough many paths exist to access data, there is currently no focal point where userscan go to gain access to all available ocean data and information. As a result, the processcan be tedious, and the risk of missing key databases high. Interdisciplinary users face evengreater challenges when attempting to integrate data sets from different centers. The varieddata standards, formats, and metadata that have evolved over time make data exchangecomplex and unwieldy. Other problems arise when important data sets are kept by individualscientists or institutions, rather than being integrated into national databases.One area of critical concern, particularly for coastal resource managers, is the integrationof coastal data, including maps, charts, and living and nonliving resource assessments.The user community is frustrated by the difficulties in accessing coastal geospatial data.Serious concerns continue regarding the timeliness, accuracy, and descriptions associatedwith coastal data, and the difficulties of integrating data sets from various sources. Coastalmanagers and researchers still lack a seamless bathymetric/topographic base map anddatabase for the U.S. coast—an essential underpinning for improved understanding of theprocesses that occur across the land-sea interface. (The integration of maps and charts isalso discussed in Chapter 25.)Several innovative and highly promising interagency efforts to increase data accessibilityare underway. The National Virtual Ocean Data System project is a primary example.Funded by the National Ocean Partnership Program, it facilitates seamless access tooceanographic data and data products via the Internet, regardless of data type, location ofthe storage site, the format in which the data are stored, or the user’s visualization toolsand level of expertise. The National Virtual Ocean Data System uses OPeNDAP technologythat provides machine-to-machine interoperability within a highly distributed environmentof heterogeneous data sets. This is similar to other successful Internet-based filesharing systems that allow users to access data (typically music files) that reside onanother individual’s computer. The Ocean.US data management plan envisions that theNational Virtual Ocean Data System will be implemented to allow access to IOOS data.436 A N O CEAN B LUEPRINT FOR THE 21ST C ENTURY