MCSS - Marine Climatological Summaries Scheme

The MCSS, established in 1964, has as its primary objective the international exchange, quality control and archival of delayed mode marine climatological data, in support of global climate studies and the provision of a range on marine climatological services.  Eight countries are designated to process the data and regularly publish the climatological summaries. Two Global Data Collecting Centres (GCC) were established in 1993 in Germany and the United Kingdom to facilitate and enhance the flow and quality control of the data.  All data are eventually archived in the appropriate World Data Centres, such as the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC).

• IMMT-3 format
• MQCS-V format
• Minimum Quality Control software (version 3)
• Data Flow Diagram (from DWD)
• GCC Annual reports

Review of the MCSS: JCOMM and its Data Management Coordination Group recommended a review and restructuring of the MCSS and requested the ETMC—in liaison with the JCOMM Expert Team on Wind Waves and Storm Surges (ETWS), the Expert Team on Sea Ice (ETSI), the WMO Commission for Climatology (CCl), and the joint CCl/CLIVAR/JCOMM Expert Team on Climate Change Detection and Indices (ETCCDI)—to explore how oceanographic and ice climatologies could be coordinated with the marine meteorological data, so that the results could be viewed as an integrated product.

At its Second Session, Geneva, Switzerland, October 2006, the DMCG agreed on the need for modernization of the management of the two separate functions of the MCSS:

• The delayed-mode VOS data handling
• The preparation of the Marine Climatological Summaries (MCS)

As a first step the DMCG decided to establish a self-funded, cross-cutting Task Team on Delayed Mode VOS data (TT-DMVOS), comprised of members both from the ETMC and the Ship Observations Team (SOT). The Terms of Reference of the TT-DMVOS have been reviewed and agreed upon by the second session of the ETMC, Geneva, 26-27 March 2007, and the fourth Session of the SOT, Geneva, Switzerland, 16-21 April 2007.

As a second step, at its Second session, the ETMC recommended to establish a cross-cutting Task Team on Marine-Meteorological and Oceanographic Climatological Summaries (TT-MOCS). To assist in the process, the ETMC-II decided to establish an ad hoc cross-cutting Task Team with Membership from ETMC, ETSI, ETWS, CCl, and ETCCDI to set up the Terms of Reference for the proposed TT-MOCS. These have been finalized, agreed upon and available here.

E2EDM - End-to-End Data Management

The "end-to-end" data management (E2EDM) system is considered as the coordinated and inter-connected combination of the following components:

• Marine and ocean meteorological data management systems (local DM systems) which are available and being developed under various ocean study programs and services.
• Integration technology as an "umbrella" that comprises local DM systems and provides communication and "transparent" interaction between metadata, data and products resulting from these DM systems and also an end-user access to any data and information generated by DM systems. 

• The goal of this ETDMP Pilot Project is to develop a prototype of the Web-oriented technology that can undertake real-time data fusion from distributed oceanographic and marine meteorological data sources into sample products of interest to JCOMM users and can demonstrate "end to end" data management opportunities (further, E2EDM technology).
  

Table driven codes

Most of the requirements for the encoding of marine observational data to be distributed in real-time need to be relayed to the Commission for Basic Systems (CBS) for adoption. Considering the diversity of the requirements, the number of groups and Panels involved, and cross-cutting issues, the second meeting of the JCOMM Data Management Coordination Group, Geneva, 10-12 October 2006, agreed that it would be more efficient if there was a group within the JCOMM DMPA responsible for collecting all JCOMM-related coding requirements, for compiling them in a consolidated JCOMM proposal and for submitting them to the CBS Inter Programme Expert Team on Data Representation and Codes (IPET-DRC). A representative from the group could also attend the CBS IPET-DRC Meeting on behalf of the JCOMM.See more details here.

Metadata

Instrumental metadata (description of the observing platforms, siting of the instruments, platform identification and operator, etc.) are important for operational applications, climate studies, quality monitoring, instrument evaluation, and programme operations. A number of activities relate to instrumental metadata as far as marine applications are concerned. These include but are not limited to the following:

• The ODAS (Ocean Data Acquisition Systems) Metadata Service (ODASMS) is provided by the National Marine Data & Information Service, China (NMDIS)
• WMO Provides for the management of observing ship metadata through its Publication No. 47.
• The JCOMM Water Temperature [instrumental] metadata pilot project (META-T) is aiming at providing an international standardization framework for collecting sea surface temperature (SST) and water temperature profile instrumental metadata from a number of marine observational systems, including drifting and moored buoys, observing ships, sea level stations, sub-surface profiling floats, ocean reference stations, and ODAS.
• JCOMMOPS is directly collecting metadata from in situ observing platform operators and providing such information on-line.

Ocean Data Standards

JCOMM and IODE have established a process to manage the development of standards and broad communication of both the process and results. This includes:

• A pilot project organized under the IODE/JCOMM ETDMP that will further refine the process and apply it to the standard candidates recommended by the Forum;
• Documenting the standards process and promoting it at national and international meetings where appropriate;
• Establishing close collaboration with other organizations such as GEOSS, Ocean.US, and World Data Centers immediately to widely advertise and promote the adopted standards;
• A web site (www.oceandatastandards.org) with a clear identity related to ocean data standards
• Undertaking other communication to further promote the Process and adopted standards.

More information can be found here.

Quality Management

GDSIDB - Global Digital Sea Ice Data Bank

GTSPP - Global Temperature-Salinity Profile Programme

A cooperative international programme, the GTSPP maintains a global ocean T-S resource with data that are both up-to-date and of the highest quality possible. Both real-time data transmitted over the (GTS), and delayed-mode data received by contribution countries are acquired and quality controlled by the Integrated Science Data Management (ISDM, Canada) and eventually incorporated into a continuously managed database maintained by the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC), USA.  Countries contributing data to the project are Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Russia, and the United States.

• GTSPP schema  

GOSUD - Global Ocean Surface Underway Data Pilot Project

GOSIC - Global Observing System Information Center