Conkright¹, M.E., B. Avril, C. Chandler, B. Griffiths, J. Herrmann, M.-P. Labaied, R. Lowry, T. Miyake, J.S. Sarupria and D. Spears

¹NODC/Ocean Climate Laboratory E/OC5, 1315 East-West Highway, Silver Spring, MD, USA, 20910-3282, Tel: 301-713-3290 ext. 190, Fax: 301 -713-3303, E-mail:

mconkright@nodc.noaa.gov

JGOFS Data Management: What has been done? What has been learned?

The JGOFS Data Management Task Team (DMTT) was charged with implementing timely data exchange between national groups participating in JGOFS, encouraging and developing data management at the national level, and providing access of JGOFS data to the international scientific community. Over the life of the project, the DMTT and national groups have made JGOFS data at the regional scale (process studies), global scale (carbon survey) and from long-term measurements at key ocean sites (time-series), available online and on CD-ROMs.

Because of the complexity of interdisciplinary data and the extent of JGOFS itself, much remains to be done to secure the accessibility of all data collected in the project. The lack of a centralized International Project Data Centre severely hampers the use of JGOFS data for synthesis and model validation, now and in the future. It is only recently that the JGOFS Data Management Task Team (DMTT) began working to compile a single database (the International JGOFS Master Dataset), in a single format and in a single location (in the WDC system, thanks to an initiative of PANGAEA/WDC-MARE; and on CDs or DVDs) before the end of the project (Dec. 2003).

As new programs are being designed or implemented, we must learn from the JGOFS data management experience. The major, past and current DMTT activities and achievements will be presented, along with a set of recommendations regarding the data management in future international projects, which should result in the rapid and full availability of data, and its long-term preservation and accessibility.