Data useful to operational oceanography are obtained by diverse means including in-situ platforms (ships, drifters, floats, moorings, etc) and satellites. They come in very different forms, from a single variable measured at a single point to multivariate four dimensional collections of data that represent data volumes from a few bytes to gigabytes.
In past 10 years, we have seen the emergence of assembly centres that :
- integrate data coming from a wide variety of platforms and providers (scientists, national data centres, satellite data centres and operational agencies)
- get enough information from the originators to be able to know exactly how the data have been acquired and processed (documented and commonly agreed QC procedures, history of the processing)
- distribute data and meta-data in agreed standardized formats (speaking the same language).
Thus the CORIOLIS Data Center relies on the distribution centers to consolidate a comprehensive and consistent set of real-time and delayed-time data for operational oceanography and research. It also provides data sets for validation of satellite data missions
Coriolis data center is managed and operated by Sismer/Ifremer in Brest (France).
Coriolis data service provides quality-controlled in-situ data in real-time and delayed modes. Managed data sets are mainly T-S profiles and time series from profiling floats, XBT's, thermo-salinographs, drifting and moored buoys. Coriolis is progressively integrated other parameters such as sea level from European real-time tide gages, and ecosystem data ( oxygen, chlorophyll and nutrients) from ferrybox , mooring and gliders.
Data transmitted by floats are processed, checked for quality and distributed to the GTS and Internet with minimum delay (24 h). The data service works in close association with a scientific team to define procedures for data validation, quality control, formats and products.
The in situ data arriving to the CORIOLIS Data Center come from :
- France :
- data from SO-Argo France, the french component of the Euro-Argo TGIR (Très Grande Infrastructure de Recherche)
- data from SO PIRATA
- data from SO SSS
- french data from drifting and moored buoys
- data from SO MEMO
- data from Gliders
- data from french oceanographic vessels, ships from the French navy and french RECOPESCA fishing boats
- Europe:
- European Centres partners of EuroGOOS project
- European Centres partners of the SeaDataNet infrastructure
- European Centres partners of the COPERNICUS in situ component
- International networks of operational oceanography :
- ARGO : global network of profiling floats
- GOSUD : global network of measurements made from ships (mainly TSG)
- OceanSITES: global network of offshore moorings (including TAO/Triton/Pirata/Rama)
- OMM via le SMT
- GTSPP : Global Temperature and Salinity Profile Program
- US-NODC
- EGO for Gliders’s data
The CORIOLIS Data Centre is the Global Data Assembly Center (GDAC) for ARGO, OceanSITES and GOSUD project networks.
The Coriolis Data Center take care of its data providers to ensure a good visibility of their networks, organizations, scientists… Downloading statistics are regularly published for each supplier, and those statistics of downloaded data are archived. The data center work, moreover, to generalize and promote the use of DOI (Digital Object Identifier) to improve traceability in scientific studies leading to publication.