The North-East Asian Regional - Global Ocean Observing System (NEAR-GOOS) is a regional pilot project of GOOS in the Western Pacific region, presently with the participation of China, Japan, the Republic of Korea and the Russian Federation, with a view to demonstrating the usefulness of a regional ocean observing system within the framework of GOOS. The essence of NEAR-GOOS in its initial phase is to promote free oceanographic data exchange in real-time through Internet in support of daily mapping of sea conditions in marginal seas bordered by NEAR-GOOS participating countries, benefiting a wide range of marine users.
In order to promote the data exchange, a data exchange system called NEAR-GOOS data system has been established by the four participating countries. The system started its operation in 1996 and oceanographic data not only in the NEAR-GOOS region but also in the global ocean have been distributed through the system. It consists of Regional Real Time and Delayed Mode Data Bases (RRTDB and RDMDB) and national real time and delayed mode data bases. RRTDB and RDMDB are in charge of distributing all oceanographic data in the region. National data bases are in charge of distributing oceanographic data obtained in each country. One of the major data sources of RRTDB is the Global Telecommunication System (GTS), which interconnect meteorological telecommunication centers in order to exchange meteorological and oceanographic data in real time. Marine weather observations from voluntary observing ships and buoys, subsurface temperature and salinity profiles observed by ships of opportunity, research vessels, buoys and profiling floats are exchanged through GTS. RRTDB, which is operated by the Japan Meteorological Agency, retrieves those oceanographic data from GTS and provides them to registered users. RDMDB, which is operated by the Japan Oceanographic Data Center (JODC), serves to provide secondhand RRTDB data and other oceanographic data gathered by JODC and archive them.
Even though the data system has been successfully operated, the data exchanged through it are still limited. Extension of the types and volume of the exchanged data should be given high priority in the future NEAR-GOOS activity. |
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