ocean_data_tools: A MATLAB toolbox for interacting with bulk freely-available oceanographic data

ocean_data_tools simplifies the process of extracting, formatting, and visualizing freely-available oceanographic data. A wealth of oceanographic data (from research cruises, autonomous floats, global ocean models, etc.) is accessible online. However, many oceanographers and environmental scientists (particularly those from subdisciplines not accustomed to working with large datasets) can be dissuaded from utilizing this data because of the overhead associated with determining how to batch download data and format it into easily-manipulable data structures. ocean_data_tools solves this problem by allowing the user to transform common oceanographic data sources into uniform structure arrays, call general functions on these structure arrays, perform custom calculations, and make graphics

Oceanographic Weather Maps: Using Oceanographic Models to Improve Seabed Mapping Planning and Acquisition

In a world of high precision sensors, one of the few remaining challenges in multibeam echosounding is that of refraction based uncertainty. A poor understanding of oceanographic variability can lead to inadequate sampling of the water mass and the uncertainties that result from this can dominate the uncertainty budget of even state-of-the-art echosounding systems. Though dramatic improvements have been made in sensor accuracies over the past few decades, survey accuracy and efficiency is still potentially limited by a poor understanding of the “underwater weather”. Advances in the sophistication of numerical oceanographic forecast modeling, combined with ever increasing computing power, allow for the timely operation and dissemination of oceanographic nowcast and forecast model systems on regional and global scales. These sources of information, when examined using sound speed uncertainty analysis techniques, have the potential to change the way hydrographers work by increasing our understanding of what to expect from the ocean and when to expect it. Sound speed analyses derived from ocean modeling system’s three-dimensional predictions could provide guidance for hydrographers during survey planning, acquisition and post-processing of hydrographic data. In this work, we examine techniques for processing and visualizing of predictions from global and regional operational oceanographic forecast models and climatological analyses from an ocean atlas to better understand how these data could best be put to use to in the field of hydrograph

Advanced Mid-Water Tools for 4D Marine Data Fusion and Visualization

Mapping and charting of the seafloor underwent a revolution approximately 20 years ago with the introduction of multibeam sonars -- sonars that provided complete, high-resolution coverage of the seafloor rather than sparse measurements. The initial focus of these sonar systems was the charting of depths in support of safety of navigation and offshore exploration; more recently innovations in processing software have led to approaches to characterize seafloor type and for mapping seafloor habitat in support of fisheries research. In recent years, a new generation of multibeam sonars has been developed that, for the first time, have the ability to map the water column along with the seafloor. This ability will potentially allow multibeam sonars to address a number of critical ocean problems including the direct mapping of fish and marine mammals, the location of mid-water targets and, if water column properties are appropriate, a wide range of physical oceanographic processes. This potential relies on suitable software to make use of all of the new available data. Currently, the users of these sonars have a limited view of the mid-water data in real-time and limited capacity to store it, replay it, or run further analysis. The data also needs to be integrated with other sensor assets such as bathymetry, backscatter, sub-bottom, seafloor characterizations and other assets so that a “complete” picture of the marine environment under analysis can be realized. Software tools developed for this type of data integration should support a wide range of sonars with a unified format for the wide variety of mid-water sonar types. This paper describes the evolution and result of an effort to create a software tool that meets these needs, and details case studies using the new tools in the areas of fisheries research, static target search, wreck surveys and physical oceanographic processes

Serving GODAE Data and Products to the Ocean Community

The Global Ocean Data Assimilation Experiment (GODAE [http:// www.godae.org]) has spanned a decade of rapid technological development. The ever-increasing volume and diversity of oceanographic data produced by in situ instruments, remote-sensing platforms, and computer simulations have driven the development of a number of innovative technologies that are essential for connecting scientists with the data that they need. This paper gives an overview of the technologies that have been developed and applied in the course of GODAE, which now provide users of oceanographic data with the capability to discover, evaluate, visualize, download, and analyze data from all over the world. The key to this capability is the ability to reduce the inherent complexity of oceanographic data by providing a consistent, harmonized view of the various data products. The challenges of data serving have been addressed over the last 10 years through the cooperative skills and energies of many individuals

The Effect of Multiple Formats on Understanding Complex Visual Displays

Provides pedagogical insight concerning the skill of contours The resource being annotated is: http://www.dlese.org/dds/catalog_DLESE-000-000-004-595.htm

The Effect of Multiple Formats on Understanding Complex Visual Displays

Students in introductory science courses frequently have difficulty comprehending complex graphics such as contour maps. Computer-assisted instruction (CAI), because of its ability to convey the same information in different formats, may help students gain necessary graphic interpretation skills. This article describes a research project in which students practiced reading two temperature maps in either a standard black and white contour or a color-enhanced contour format. They were then divided into groups and tested using only standard contour maps. The tests examined comprehension of the distribution of sea surface temperature, oceanographic phosphate concentration, and brain activation. Results suggest that having students practice with differently formatted maps of the same information improves later comprehension of standard contour maps. Educational levels: Graduate or professional

Uncertainty Wedge Analysis: Quantifying the Impact of Sparse Sound Speed Profiling Regimes on Sounding Uncertainty

Recent advances in real-time monitoring of uncertainty due to refraction have demonstrated the power of estimating and visualizing uncertainty over the entire potential sounding space. This representation format, referred to as an uncertainty wedge, can be used to help solve difficult survey planning problems regarding the spatio-temporal variability of the watercolumn. Though initially developed to work in-line with underway watercolumn sampling hardware (e.g. moving vessel profilers), uncertainty wedge analysis techniques are extensible to investigate problems associated with low-density watercolumn sampling in which only a few sound speed casts are gathered per day. As uncertainty wedge analysis techniques require no sounding data, the overhead of post-processing soundings is circumvented in the situation when one needs to quickly ascertain the impact of a particular sampling regime. In keeping with the spirit of the underlying real-time monitoring tools, a just in time analysis of sound speed casts can help the field operator assess the effects of watercolumn variability during acquisition and objectively seek a watercolumn sampling regime which would balance the opposing goals of maximizing survey efficiency and maintaining reasonable sounding accuracy. In this work, we investigate the particular problem of estimating the uncertainty that would be associated with a particular low-density sound speed sampling regime. A pre-analysis technique is proposed in which a high-density set of sound speed profiles provides a baseline against which various low-density sampling regimes can be tested, the end goal being to ascertain the penalty in sounding confidence that would be associated with a particular low-density sampling regime. In other words, by knowing too much about the watercolumn, one can objectively quantify the impact of not knowing enough. In addition to the goal-seeking field application outlined earlier, this allows for more confi- dent attribution of uncertainty to soundings, a marked improvement over current approaches to refraction uncertainty estimation

Designing Improved Sediment Transport Visualizations

Monitoring, or more commonly, modeling of sediment transport in the coastal environment is a critical task with relevance to coastline stability, beach erosion, tracking environmental contaminants, and safety of navigation. Increased intensity and regularity of storms such as Superstorm Sandy heighten the importance of our understanding of sediment transport processes. A weakness of current modeling capabilities is the ability to easily visualize the result in an intuitive manner. Many of the available visualization software packages display only a single variable at once, usually as a two-dimensional, plan-view cross-section. With such limited display capabilities, sophisticated 3D models are undermined in both the interpretation of results and dissemination of information to the public. Here we explore a subset of existing modeling capabilities (specifically, modeling scour around man-made structures) and visualization solutions, examine their shortcomings and present a design for a 4D visualization for sediment transport studies that is based on perceptually-focused data visualization research and recent and ongoing developments in multivariate displays. Vector and scalar fields are co-displayed, yet kept independently identifiable utilizing human perception\u27s separation of color, texture, and motion. Bathymetry, sediment grain-size distribution, and forcing hydrodynamics are a subset of the variables investigated for simultaneous representation. Direct interaction with field data is tested to support rapid validation of sediment transport model results. Our goal is a tight integration of both simulated data and real world observations to support analysis and simulation of the impact of major sediment transport events such as hurricanes. We unite modeled results and field observations within a geodatabase designed as an application schema of the Arc Marine Data Model. Our real-world focus is on the Redbird Artificial Reef Site, roughly 18 nautical miles offshor- Delaware Bay, Delaware, where repeated surveys have identified active scour and bedform migration in 27 m water depth amongst the more than 900 deliberately sunken subway cars and vessels. Coincidently collected high-resolution multibeam bathymetry, backscatter, and side-scan sonar data from surface and autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) systems along with complementary sub-bottom, grab sample, bottom imagery, and wave and current (via ADCP) datasets provide the basis for analysis. This site is particularly attractive due to overlap with the Delaware Bay Operational Forecast System (DBOFS), a model that provides historical and forecast oceanographic data that can be tested in hindcast against significant changes observed at the site during Superstorm Sandy and in predicting future changes through small-scale modeling around the individual reef objects

Oceanus.

v. 38, no.1 (1995

PANGAEA information system for glaciological data management

Specific parameters determined on cores from continental ice sheets or glaciers can be used to reconstruct former climate. To use this scientific resource effectively an information system is needed which guarantees consistent longtime storage of data and provides easy access for the scientific community.An information system to archive any data of paleoclimatic relevance, together with the related metadata, raw data and evaluated paleoclimatic data, is presented. The system, based on a relational database, provides standardized import and export routines, easy access with uniform retrieval functions, and tools for the visualization of the data. The network is designed as a client/server system providing access through the Internet with proprietary client software including a high functionality or read-only access on published data via the World Wide Web