Eulerian metadata catalogue

Résumé fourni par la source

The joint WMO-IOC in situ Ocean Observing System Monitoring and Coordination Centre (OceanOPS, formerly JCOMMOPS) was mandated by the observations coordination group of the Global Ocean Observing System (OCG/GOOS) to maintain and manage metadata of OCG networks.Globally OceanOPS needs to make progress on the monitoring of GOOS Eulerian elements.Thus, OceanOPS activity within EuroSea project is an opportunity to highlight challenges and enable progress.OceanOPS has developed a metadata management system for standardization and harmonization of various OCG networks 1 , including long term Eulerian time series stations.The Eulerian stations considered are fixed moorings for ocean observations as against the mobile drifting buoys, floats, gliders under overall GOOS OCG.Other fixed stations like tidal gauges, high frequency radars are beyond current topic.The OceanSITES netCDF data format specification was reviewed to include metadata as required by OceanOPS.The EMSO community has started to use this format.However, and if this new format is widely used (which is not the case at the moment), it has to be made available before data are made available (often two years after the observations) otherwise our monitoring status will always lag behind.And what about the SITES for which the data sharing is not happening for some reasons.We won't have any monitoring capacity on these as we would only see the platforms sharing data.The alignment of metadata between OceanOPS requirements and final files for data users is needed, but this will not help our monitoring.Metadata have to be channelled to OceanOPS before (or just after) the SITE is serviced.The current approach to complete the catalogue are based on rare, irregular, and individual submissions to OceanOPS.This is not efficient for any of the stakeholders but is better than nothing.The prioritization of metadata submission to OceanOPS, according to its developing standard, seems to be the main challenge we face to deliver a robust and accurate metadata catalogue for Eulerian networks in Europe and beyond.Considering the complexity and often unique specificities of each of these Eulerian systems, the work load required to complete this harmonization might as well be underestimated.Without an active and regular cooperation between Eulerian platform operators and OceanOPS, our monitoring capacity in Europe for this system will remain rather poor.

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