National Ocean Service

About: National Ocean Service is a government organization based out in Silver Spring, Maryland, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Algal bloom & Population. The organization has 500 authors who have published 643 publications receiving 46096 citations.

The coastal marine demonstration of forecast information to mariners off the U.S. east coast: a status report

Abstract: A stated goal of the NOAA is to provide a capability to measure, understand, analyze, and forecast coastal environmental phenomena that impact coastal economies, public safety, and environmental management. A partnership project was established to demonstrate the capability of providing improved coastal marine environmental information to a selected group of marine customers in a major port of the United States, and was funded by the National Ocean Partnership Program. The Coastal Marine Demonstration (CMD) was developed jointly by government, academia and industry, encompassing twelve partners. As a major partner, NOAA has embarked on a plan to improve predictions and develop new products based on coastal forecasting experiments and advancements in modeling capability for the coupled ocean and atmosphere. Coastal modeling and information systems have progressed to the point that such a demonstration is not only feasible but also practical. The project integrates experimental forecast products under development for coastal waters, harbours, and bays, with higher resolution atmospheric forecasts; and new methods for dissemination and display of coastal environmental information. The project is a strong test of the coastal observation networks. The CMD project tests the state of the art in marine forecasting and evaluates the potential benefits of experimental higher resolution predictions. Oceanographic and meteorological forecasts for Norfolk Harbor, Chesapeake Bay, and neighboring Atlantic shelf waters are provided for evaluation to a group of customers including harbour pilots and masters, shipping agents, and ship captains while both ashore and at sea.

An Undersea Features Names File for the Personal Computer

Abstract: An undersea features names file has been created by NOAA for use in mapping the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and other ocean areas. It supplements and updates the 1981 edition of the "Gazetteer of Undersea Features", which is published about every ten years by the Defense Mapping Agency in cooperation with the U. S. Board on Geographic Names. The new data base contains 3,407 official and 2,659 additional variant names, making a total of 6066 records covering all offshore ocean areas of the world. The records are maintained in dBase III files having fields for name, type of feature, latitude, longitude, and a six digit index number to allow rapid sorting into one degree square blocks. The over 504,000- byte world data base may be sorted into smaller geographical areas, and may be further sorted on any combination of fields, using an IBM-compatible personal computer and standard dBase III commands.

Infrastructure and tools for serving, accessing, and analyzing ocean information from the Integrated Ocean Observing System

Abstract: According to the Integrated Coastal Ocean Observation System (ICOOS) Act of 2009 the U.S. Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS®) Enterprise extends across 17 federal agencies and 11 regional associations and includes numerous actors from within those organizations. One of the primary functions IOOS provides is a Data Management and Communications (DMAC) Subsystem that aims to make discoverable and accessible data and information from multiple disciplines across the aforementioned enterprise. With such diverse participation and broad mandate for the types of data included in IOOS, it is unrealistic to expect that a single data center is capable of aggregating, managing, curating, and distributing all of the ocean data of interest to the IOOS enterprise. Instead, the IOOS enterprise implements a distributed data network bound together by a few key features of a shared vision for data discovery and access. This paper will discuss progress and lessons learned from nearly ten years of experience in creating or adapting the standards, tools, and community needed to develop and maintain the distributed data network that will support IOOS efforts in science, operational decision making, and product delivery. The current configuration of the DMAC subsystem of IOOS is a combination of people, process, and technology that provide a service to the nation. The primary service DMAC provides is to deliver well curated and documented ocean data and information to the public using the World Wide Web as the primary platform. Within these three areas (people, process, and technology) choices are made based on resources, policy mandates, available skills, technical maturity and capability, and customer requirements. Collectively the choices within each area determine the architecture of the DMAC system and will form the organization for this paper. The “people” form the main stakeholder groups of IOOS, both the builders and the users, so understanding how these various stakeholder groups work cooperatively to grow the DMAC system is critical to progress. The “process” area determines how the people work together and the policy constraints the system is under. Finally, the “technology” includes the software and standards DMAC implements to address the system needs.