OCEANOGRAPHIC AND MARINE METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS IN THE POLAR REGIONS A Report to the Joint WMO/IOC Technical Commission on Oceanography and Marine Meteorology WMO/TD-No. 1032 2000 JCOMM Technical Report No. 8 WORLD METEOROLOGICAL ORGANIZATION INTERGOVERNMENTAL OCEANOGRAPHIC COMMISSION (OF UNESCO) _____________ ___________ OCEANOGRAPHIC AND MARINE METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS IN THE POLAR REGIONS A Report to the Joint WMO/IOC Technical Commission on Oceanography and Marine Meteorology WMO/TD-No. 1032 2000 JCOMM Technical Report No. 8 N O T E The designations employed and the presentation of material in this publication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Secretariats of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (of UNESCO), and the World Meteorological Organization concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area, or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. C O N T E N T S FOREWORD.................................................................................................................................. i BACKGROUND ............................................................................................................................iii 1. INTRODUCTION .....................................................................................................................1 2. USER REQUIREMENTS SUMMARY......................................................................................2 2.1 Services (met/ocean/ice)..........................................................................................2 2.2 Safe and efficient marine operations........................................................................3 2.3 Global climate monitoring/prediction ........................................................................5 2.4 Climate research......................................................................................................6 2.5 Other research.........................................................................................................7 2.6 Living marine resources (e.g. conservation, protection) ..........................................8 2.7 Environment.............................................................................................................8 2.8 Global numerical weather prediction......................................................................10 3. OBSERVING SYSTEMS .......................................................................................................10 3.1 In situ......................................................................................................................11 3.2 Remote sensing (satellite, aircraft, ship- and shore-based radar, acoustic, etc) ...12 3.3 Sea level................................................................................................................14 4. DATA MANAGEMENT...........................................................................................................16 4.1 Data collection and information management and exchange ................................17 4.1.1 Real time................................................................................................................17 4.1.2 Delayed mode........................................................................................................18 4.1.3 Historic...................................................................................................................18 4.1.4 The Global Digital Sea Ice Data Bank (GDSIDB) ..................................................18 4.2 Quality control........................................................................................................18 4.3 Archiving................................................................................................................19 5. MODELING, PRODUCTS, SERVICES .................................................................................19 6. INFORMATION EXCHANGE AND COMMUNICATION........................................................20 6.1 Catalogues, guides, manuals, etc..........................................................................21 6.2 Technical documents .............................................................................................21 6.3 Web sites, newsletter, brochures, etc. ...................................................................21 7. CAPACITY BUILDING ...........................................................................................................21 7.1 Technology transfer...............................................................................................21 7.2 Software exchange................................................................................................21 7.3 Specialized training................................................................................................22 8. IMPLEMENTATION MECHANISMS......................................................................................22 8.1 JCOMM..................................................................................................................22 8.2 GOOS....................................................................................................................22 8.3 GCOS.....................................................................................................................22 8.4 IOCSOC.................................................................................................................22 8.5 WMO-EC WG/AM ..................................................................................................23 9. SCIENTIFIC ADVICE.............................................................................................................23 9.1 IASC.......................................................................................................................23 9.2 SCAR.....................................................................................................................23 9.3 SCOR.....................................................................................................................24 9.4 AOSB.....................................................................................................................24 9.5 OOPC and other GOOS and GCOS Panels ..........................................................24 9.6 WCRP....................................................................................................................24 9.7 IGBP.......................................................................................................................25 10. INTERACTIONS ..................................................................................................................25 10.1 The Antarctic Treaty...............................................................................................25 10.2 The Arctic Council..................................................................................................25 10.3 The Baltic...............................................................................................................26 10.4 CCAMLAR..............................................................................................................26 10.5 COMNAP...............................................................................................................26 10.6 IABP.......................................................................................................................26 10.7 IHO.........................................................................................................................27 10.8 IMO........................................................................................................................27 10.9 IPAB.......................................................................................................................27 11. CONCLUSIONS...................................................................................................................27 Annex 1 LIST OF ACRONYMS AND OTHER ABBREVIATIONS .............................................29 Annex 2 JOINT COMMITTEE ON ANTARCTIC DATA MANAGEMENT...................................31 - i - FOREWORD The following report consists of information gleaned from documents, from electronic sites, from organizations and from experts and managers in the interested organizations. I am grateful to all the sources, especially those who reviewed and commented on the original draft. The task proved a bigger one than I had originally supposed. There is obviously a great deal of fragmentation and overlap between the national and international research and observational programmes at the same time as an existence of serious data and knowledge gaps. The information on many of the national programmes was obtained electronically and the currency of such information varied widely. The first draft included an Annex on the national programmes in the polar regions, but this was found to vary so much in content and currency that it has been dropped from the final report. Such a collection of information and references will however be useful and I recommend to JCOMM that the Member States of WMO and IOC be tasked with putting such a document together and keeping it up to date. I have incorporated commentary and views when I thought that such comments would be helpful to JCOMM. Some of these were my own, but many were those I received from the experts. I have included