OOI Monthly Update – March 2016

Letter from the Director

OOI User Community and Colleagues,

Welcome to this inaugural edition of our OOI Monthly Newsletter. I hope that you all will enjoy it as much and find it as useful as I did! As you’ll see in this edition the OOI Team remains hard at work. Our primary focus remains completing the roll out of the full data delivery capability of our OOI Cyberinfrastructure (CI). However, even as that work continues more data is continually coming online and being made available through the OOI Data Portal. You’ll find a detailed update of current data availability in this issue, as well as an update on the overall state of our CI work. We’ll be continually adding accessible data to the portal until we complete the development of the final CI data delivery baseline in late May.

Finally, I’d like to call attention to a call out for support we’ve issued this week to any members of the OOI User Community who are subject matter experts on sensors used within the OOI, and who would be interested in providing us with some volunteer assistance. Our data team and Science Oversight Committee members are engaged in ongoing work to evaluate and validate OOI data streams and instruments. In addition to and in support of this effort we are looking for some volunteer assistance from subject matter experts to conduct some targeted validation work on select OOI instruments. Please review the details below, and let us know if you’re interested in helping out.

Thanks everyone, for your continued interest in the OOI. Please continue to use our data portal, and keep the great feedback coming in to the HelpDesk. Your ongoing inputs are critical for us to identify and correct errors and make continual improvements to the data portal and other areas on the OOI website. Stay with us, and stay engaged.

Featured News

Call For Assistance from OOI Sensor Subject Matter Experts

The OOI is requesting assistance from OOI sensor Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) who are interested in supporting an ongoing effort to evaluate and validate OOI data streams and instruments using raw data streams from OOI instruments. This call is designed to evaluate existing data to supplement existing evaluation and validation activities (OOI Quality Control Protocols and Procedures) and to help the OOI improve at-sea and post-recovery procedures based on the latest information from subject matter experts.

SME volunteers will be provided with raw data streams from select instruments identified by the OOI Science Oversight Committee (SOC) as priority instruments most in need of validation. SMEs will be asked to analyze the raw data to both validate proper operation of the instrument and evaluate and validate the content of the data.

To volunteer, please contact the HelpDesk – help@oceanobservatories.org

-Full Story-

Cyberinfrastructure Update

The Cyberinfrastructure Team has been working to increase data download capabilities from the OOI Data Portal (OOINet) and the OOI website. Currently, users can plot and download science data, access cruise reports and shipboard data, and view streaming video from the ocean floor. Additionally, new in March, asynchronous download of NetCDF files has been enabled, and the OOI Data Team is working to increase the datasets available through this mechanism. Raw Data for all arrays will be available from the OOI by April 8, via a link on the OOI website.

Several impending software and GUI improvements are still being tested on the test server, including: direct .csv download, association of pressure and latitude/longitude with all glider and profiler data points, and compression and file naming improvements to NetCDF files. These changes are scheduled to go live next week.

Thank you to everyone who has tried out the OOINet system and sent us feedback! Your input is of great value to the program as we continue to update the system and fix any errors that arise. There are currently over 300 users registered with the OOI Data Portal. From these users we have received close to 200 HelpDesk tickets this year and we have been able to resolve over 80% of these tickets. The remaining are being addressed in upcoming software and GUI upgrades. For those of you who have not logged in yet, check it out and let us know what you think!

Current OOI Data Availabilty

Streaming data from OOI cabled assets (Cabled and Endurance Array) can now be viewed online, in near-real time, through the Data Portal plotting feature. All the data ingested into OOINet continues to be available for plotting in the OOI Data Portal. Please note that ingestion is an early step in the full data flow process and these data have not yet gone through the quality control process. To view what has been ingested, click here to access the operator status tool. Asynchronous downloads of NetCDF files have also been enabled on the OOI Data Portal. Please note that we are working to increase the availability of datasets through asynchronous downloads. Some of the more complex datasets, like the Optical Attenuation and Absorption data, are not available at this time.

On the OOI Website, links can be found to download large format data sets, including HD video files from ASHES through an OPeNDAP server. Please note that in the coming weeks, as we continue to update our raw data delivery mechanisms, these OPeNDAP links may change. Additionally, data sets continue to be downloadable through the THREDDS Server and are now organized by array. Data are currently available for all arrays and include several comprehensive data sets for individual gliders, moorings, and profilers.

Historical cruise data are available for download from the OOI website. And we continue to provide interim delivery of the Cabled Array seismometer and bottom pressure data through IRIS http://www.iris.edu/hq/. Delivery of Cabled Array tilt meter and co-located temperature plots continue through Dr. Bill Chadwick’s website.