Marine Metadata

1 Introduction

In the field of ocean datasets, there are two good works we should mention. One is marine community profile which is a marine metadata specification. The other is Marine Metadata Interoperability which is a project and has defined many marine metadata. We will describe these two works more detailed next.

2 Marine Community Profile

The Australian Ocean Data Centre Joint Facility, a joint venture between six Australian Government marine data agencies, has defined a marine community of practice metadata profile of the ISO 19115 standard to support the documentation and discovery of marine datasets.

The Marine Community Profile is a subset of the standard and includes all ISO 19115 core and mandatory metadata elements. In addition, the Marine Community Profile has defined supplementary elements, codelists and controlled vocabularies to assist in the description of marine resources.
The Marine Community Profile has defined four new metadata elements and two new code tables. The extended metadata elements are:

1. Revision Date. Describes the date on which the metadata was modified.
2. Sampling Frequency. Describes the temporal sampling frequency of the resource, e.g. daily, weekly, monthly.
3. Currency. Describes the temporal currency of the resource. Values are described in the Currency Type Code list.
4. Temporal Aggregation. Describes the temporal aggregation of the resource. Values are described in the Temporal Aggregation Unit Code list.
   The extended code lists are:

5. Currency Type Code. Values to describe the temporal currency of the resource, e.g. most recent, historical, predicted.
6. Temporal Aggregation Unit Code. Values to describe the temporal aggregation unit, e.g. day, month, multi-month.

By the way, the Marine Community Profile metadata is fully specified in the UML model diagrams and data dictionary for each package.

3 Marine Metadata Interoperability

The MMI (short for Marine Metadata Interoperability) project’s goal is to promote collaborative research in the marine science domain, by simplifying the incredibly complex world of metadata into specific, straightforward guidance. MMI hopes to encourage scientists and data managers at all levels to apply good metadata practices from the start of a project, by providing the best advice and resources for data management.

MMI maintains its website to foster communication and collaboration among its hundreds of members, and provides forums for discussion of diverse topics related to marine data management. MMI is also developing web applications and stand-alone tools to enable sophisticated interactions across marine data systems.

So far, MMI has designed many marine metadata, appendix lists these metadata in detail.

Appendix

aerd_ctd

aerd_underway

AGU Index Terms
description: AGU index Terms

AOSN - Autonomous Ocean Sampling Network Parameters
description: parameters with description and units

ARGO - Instruments
description: Instrument types

ARGO - Parameteres
description: Parameters and valids.

Aquatic Science and Fisheries Abstracts Thesaurus (ASFA) Thesaurus

BIOMAR classification of Marine Biotypes
description: BioMar classification of marine biotopes by Joint Nature Conservation Committee in Britain

BODC Parameter- Group Dictionary
description: Parameter Group codes

BODC Instruments

BODC Parameter Markup Dictionary
description: Parameter codes for using of markuping up data

BODC UNITS
description: Units codes: id, short name and long names

Biological Ocean Group(BOG) CTD Bottle Fields
description: CTD bottle data (up cast), productivity, physical, and chemical data. One record for each CTD rosette bottle

Biological Ocean Group(BOG) Profiling CTD Fields
description: Profiling CTD (down cast), productivity and physical parameters (sensor data). One record for each meter in depth.

Calco Cast

calcofi_eggcounts

calcofi_p_bot

calcofi_p_cast

calcofi_p_proto

calcofi_p_station

calcofi_species_codes

calcofi_station

calcofi_tows

Coastal Data Information Program (CDIP)
description: Julie Thomas

CMECS HABITAT CLASSIFICATION FRAMEWORK

NetCDF CF - Standard Name table

CORIS - Coral Reef Information System of NOAA
description: The glossary contains terms concerned with ecology, biogeography, evolution, taxonomy, morphology, physiology, cell and molecular biology, genetics, mapping, development, fisheries, oceanography, geosciences, conservation programs, remote-sensing, physics, chemistry, and data and information management.

NAVOCEANO's Master Oceanographic Observation Data Set (MOODS) CTD related Parameters

EPIC - Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory - Units

EPIC software package attributes convetion based on netDCF
description: PMEL-EPIC/CTD convention for writing netCDF data files with the EPS library,for use with the EPIC software package for oceanographic data. This document is an addendum to the PMEL-EPICdocument in the Unidata /pub/netCDF/PMEL-EPIC directory,describing those characteristics which are specific to CTD-type data.This includes CTD, XBT and bottle data.

The European Nature Information System (EUNIS)
description: "The European Nature Information System (EUNIS) classification is a pan-European system, which was developed between 1996 and 2001 by the European Environment Agency in collaboration with experts from throughout Europe. It covers all types of natural andartificial habitats, both aquatic and terrestrial. The National Marine Habitat Classification for Britain and Ireland was fully incorporated into the EUNIS classification system. The marine section of the EUNIS classification is currently undergoing revision through the Osloand Paris Convention (OSPAR). "

FNMOC - Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center- Interpolated Sea Level Pressure

GCMD Instrument Keywords
description: Instruments keywords with short name and long name

GCMD Science Keywords
description: Science keywords categorized by: category topic term and variable

GCMD Platform Keywords
description: Platform keywords with short name and long name

Sea Surface Temperature (GTS - Global Telecommunications System)
description: Sea Surface Temperature (GTS - Global Telecommunications System)

IOC STANDARD GF3 SUBSET FOR CTD DATA
description: Fields for data collected by a CTD or similar profiling instrument, lowered from a single location and sampling temperature, conductivity and perhaps other variables.

IOOS - Integrated Ocean Observing System
description: Core variables draft (not yet recommended) for the initial IOOS

Juvenile Rockfish Survey Parameters
description: Paramters from Juvenile Rockfish Survey

Classifying benthic terrains with multibeam bathymetry, bathymetric position and rugosity

Manly Hydraulics Laboratory Glossary

MEDS - Marine Environmetal Data Services
description: Parameters codes and accuracies

MMI Sensors

NDBC Waves

NOAA Tide and Current Glossary

NOAA Waves terms compiled by Richard Bouchard
description: Waves glossary of NOAA with synonyms of NDBC, MEDS and others

prd_ctd

PRD XBT

RDI ADCP Currents and Waves Glossary

Southeast Association of Coastal Ocean Observing System (SEACOOS) Dictionary

SSDS Parameters
description: SSDS parameters in an ontology. A CSV was generated from the database and an automatic conversion was created by MMI.

UCUM Units
description: The Unified Code for Units of Measure in OWL

U.S. GLOBEC Fields Data Thesaurus
description: Field names used by the U.S. GLOBEC Program

U.S. GLOBEC Instruments
description: Instrument names used by the U.S. GLOBEC Program

U.S. JGOFS Dictionary of parameters