IOC Contributions to International, Interdisciplinary Open Data Sharing

David M. Glover; Peter H. Wiebe; Cynthia L. Chandler; Sydney Levitus

IOC Contributions to International, Interdisciplinary Open Data Sharing

2010

David M. Glover | Peter H. Wiebe | Cynthia L. Chandler | Sydney Levitus

Over the last 50 years, the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) has had a profound influence upon the willingness of United Nations Member States to share and provide access to their international and interdisciplinary oceanographic data. (For an early history and review of IOC achievements, see Roll, 1979.) Ocean science over the last half century has been transformed from a predominately modular, single-disciplinary, and individualistic science into a national and multinational interdisciplinary enterprise (Briscoe, 2008; Powell, 2008). The transformation began slowly, but as computing power increased, the pace accelerated, and along with these alterations came shifts in cultural practices regarding the sharing of data. The transformation of ocean science to a multidisciplinary national and international enterprise was abetted by the new availability of a multiplicity of data sources, thanks, in no small part, to IOC. Observations from ships, moorings, satellites, and manned submersibles are now complemented by remotely operated vehicles and autonomous underwater vehicles, floats, and gliders (D’Asaro et al., 2008). Both at sea and in shore-based laboratories, biogeochemical and genetic tools and techniques have changed the nature of the experimental side of the science. High-resolution coupled physical, biogeochemical, and biological models are now used to hindcast with existing data sets and are setting the stage for the forecasting needed to assist in anticipating climate change and the future management of our planet (Rothstein, 2006).

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