History of the WOCE SADCP DAC

From the beginning of the World Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE), Shipboard Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (SADCP) data were recognized by physical oceanographers as an important source of in-situ current observations within the upper ocean. Principal investigators with interest in SADCP were identified for most of the WOCE "one-time" and "repeat" hydrographic cruises. SADCP gained momentum in the early 1990s as GPS technology became more readily available for ship positioning and heading, which resulted in data sets of greater quality. However, prior to 1995, a WOCE DAC for SADCP did not exist.

The US National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) focused on this new technology in the early 1990s. In May 1992, NODC held a workshop of ADCP specialists to initiate an archive. It was decided that a Joint Archive for SADCP be established at UH as NODC lends its expertise in data management and the UH ADCP specialists provide scientific overview to ensure data of high integrity for research. By September 1993, a data management scheme was finalized and the NODC adopted the Common Oceanographic Data Access System (CODAS) as the standard for archiving the high- resolution data sets (typically 5-minute time and 8 m depth intervals). The CODAS is a sophisticated system that saves all original data and ancillary parameters as binary blocks (files). To support general use of SADCP data, an ASCII standard subset at hourly time and 10 m depth intervals was designed. By the beginning of 1995, the JASADCP holdings grew to over 30 cruises and the World Wide Web technology was adapted to facilitate access.

In April 1995, the NODC data management scheme was presented at the WOCE Data Products Committee (DPC) meeting held in Tallahassee, Florida. In addition, the Japan Oceanographic Data Center (JODC), which is the Responsible Oceanographic Data Center for ADCP, showed great interest in creating a WOCE DAC for SADCP and detailed its data management plan. By summer of 1995, the DPC chose to create co-DACs in order to take advantage of both available data management systems.

The JASADCP set up a WOCE SADCP DAC web site. This web site is in frozen status as of late 2002. Additional WOCE-related cruises will be only updated on the new CLIVAR SADCP DAC web site.

History of WOCE Global Data Products

In support of WOCE data and information distribution, a suite of CDROM/DVDs have been prepared for each of the WOCE Data Assembly Centers (DACs) and Specialized Analysis Centers (SACs). The first version was produced on CDROM in 1998, version 2.0 on CDROM in 2000, and the final series, Version 3.0, within a DVD set in 2002. The US National Oceanographic Data Center has provided the duplication and distribution service and is the final repository for the WOCE archive.

VERSION 1.0

Under the guidance of WOCE Data Products Committe (DPC) lead Dr. Eric Lindstrom, plans for the content of the CDROMs were established at the WOCE DPC-10 meeting held at Scripps in January, 1997. The preliminary CDROMs were reviewed at the DPC-11 meeting in Honolulu in January 1998. The CDROM, "WOCE Global Data, Version 1.0, 1998" was finalized in May 1998 and distributed at the WOCE Science Conference in Halifax, Nova Scotia at the end of the same month.

Each DAC/SAC used their own unique format for Version 1.0. HTML browsers were provided to facilitate navigation, visualization, and data access from the CDROM.

VERSION 2.0

The DPC leadership was turned over to Dr. David Legler and Dr. Nathan Bindoff as of DCP-12, held at the British Oceanographic Data Center in April 1999. The concensus of the meeting was that a standardized format was desirable among the data types for distribution purposes. NetCDF was chosen as the WOCE format and the DAC/SACs began converging on parameter/attribute names and conventions. The DPC-13 meeting at Texas A&M University in April 2000 reviewed each CDROM and made final suggestions prior to production of Version 2.0 in late Spring 2000.

VERSION 3.0

At DPC-14, held at the US NODC in March 2001, plans were drawn up for the final WOCE data series for distribution. A strong theme for the last distribution set is data type integration. A Version 3.0 Integration Working Group was established, which met in November 2001. The group was lead by Dr. Katherine Bouton of the WOCE Data Information Unit (DIU) and Dr. Reiner Schlitzer of the WOCE DPC. The results of their collaborations were circulated to the DACs in December 2001 and final decisions on integration specifications were concurred at at the March 2002 DPC-15 meeting at CSIRO in Hobart, Australia. It was then decided that DVD media would be most advantageous for distribution. The final set, WOCE Global Data, Version 3.0, was subsequently produced in August 2002. Improvements include:

• adoption of Cooperative Ocean/Atmosphere Research Data Service (COARDS) NetCDF protocols,
• standardization of WOCE-dependent NetCDF global variables, such as EXPOCODE=,
• better agreement among WOCE IDs and EXPOCODEs across DACs with cruise data (ADCP,DIU,WHPO,Meteorology),
• data type integration inventories and tools, and
• additional data that were received by DACs since Version 2.0 production.

Onward to CLIVAR

In October 2002, Dr. Howard Cattle, Director of the International CLIVAR Project Office, invited the WOCE SADCP co-DACs to continue service under CLIVAR. Both JODC and NOAA accepted the task. In February, 2003, Mr. Sugiyama of the JODC spent a week at the JASADCP in Hawaii to collaborate on CLIVAR management issues. The co-DACs are dedicated to making the SADCP data from CLIVAR cruises readily available.