OOI ERDDAP Server Now Online

The Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) Environmental Research Division’s Data Access Program (ERDDAP) server is now online hosting uncabled, telemetered data from OOI moorings and gliders.

ERDDAP is a free and open-source platform that provides a simple, consistent way to download subsets of OOI datasets in common file formats and make profile plots and maps.

“One of the top requests we received from our user community was to make OOI data accessible via ERDDAP,” remarks Mike Vardaro, OOI Data Manager. “We are thrilled that we can now offer this interface to access OOI data, and we look forward to expanding access and making more data available through this method in the future.”

The OOI joins many other organizations who are utilizing ERDDAP servers to broadly share their data, including NOAA, NASA, and USGS.

ERDDAP is focused primarily on serving data in the form of Network Common Data Form (NetCDF) files, but it also has the capacity to deliver data in a large number of file formats as well as generate plots and maps of requested data. Together, ERDDAP and NetCDF allow data, metadata, and data attribution information to be efficiently and conveniently distributed.

ERDDAP has a standard browser interface that facilitates searching for, converting, and plotting data, and is built using a RESTful machine-to-machine API. Additionally, since all information about every request is contained in the URL of each request, users can easily create automated tools to search for data in Python, R, JavaScript, or MATLAB. Proficient users can also build their own custom interfaces.

The first OOI ERDDAP server to come online contains uncabled, telemetered data from moorings and gliders. The cabled, streaming data server is coming soon.

For more information, user guides, instruction videos, code examples, and to access the data, check out the OOI website.