major categories:

-Applied research to increase knowledge and skill and to improve techniques and equipment for use in development of marine resources; -Training personnel at all levels—including two-year programs for technicians—who will participate in marine resource development; -Marine advisory programs (information transfer) designed to aid persons currently employed or interested in marine resources development. Such programs would include, but not be limited to, workshops, advisory services, seminars, and demonstrations.

Chapter VII

OCEANOGRAPHIC DATA

Data Needs

The rational flow of information from collector to consumer is the lifeblood of a marine science and technology enterprise. If intensified but necessarily dispersed efforts are to be successful-to understand complex ocean phenomena, marine life, and the ocean-atmosphere interaction—and if understanding is to foster application, data handling must be responsive to a wide variety of user needs.

Studies have shown evidence of serious deficiences in the Nation's oceanographic data handling: delays in filing; archaic handling methods; lack of critical evaluation and inadequate identification of purpose. Since Federal interests are sharply involved both in production and consumption of marine data, the Marine Sciences Council decided to undertake a comprehensive study of requirements for data acquisition, storage, retrieval, and use. Non-Federal as well as Federal requirements will be taken into account. The study should lead to more effective data utilization as well as lower costs.

Marine science information-like any related body of information-involves a complex, often perishable data commodity including connected functions of acquisition, standardization and tests for accuracy, storage, retrieval, analysis, and synthesis. Today, real-time as well as archival data systems must be accommodated. Such data may be classified by field, such as physical oceanography or geology, and by geographical source. It may be classified according to whether the user's motivation is for description, analysis, or application.

Vast quantities of marine environmental information are required to support virtually all of the purposes of marine science and technology discussed in this report. Scientists, commercial fisheries experts, meteorologists, military planners and operators, and ocean engineers are naturally concerned with the collection and interpretation of materials in a manner suited to their own particular needs, as illustrated. by Figure 13. Officials in Government and executives in business management increasingly depend on quantitative scientific information and objective analysis to make policy decisions.

and multidisciplinary in content, the data consumers will be less able to produce their own raw materials and will become more dependent on the work of others. To prevent unnecessary and costly duplication in data collection-the most costly part of marine sciences-collected data should be readily available to all users consistent with the need for national security.

The exploration of the oceans has been a somewhat random and often uncoordinated process. There has never been widespread agreement among the marine science community, as there is in some other fields, as to data handling procedures and standards with the result that materials are not as coherent and systematic as we now desire. In the meanwhile, technology now makes it possible to accumulate data at a vastly faster rate. Today, data users are often unaware of existing sources, and are unable to retrieve needed data quickly in readily usable form. In other cases, however, known data may be deliberately rejected because of doubts of its validity. These problems will need very careful definition before solutions can be formulated.

Any future system to improve management of data should be a system that deals in one consistent way with data from its source through authentication, indexing, filing, and retrieval. Such a system involves not only the data commodity itself, but intimately involves the variety of private and public users and contributors, the

support activities.

When we refer to system, incidentally, we do not necessarily anticipate a centralized operation, but include the articulation of a number of specialized data centers appropriately linked and meeting quality standards.

Present Status and Next Steps

Some physical-chemical and other information is stored in data banks at the multiagency funded and managed National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) in Washington, D.C., and various other DOD and ESSA data centers. Much information is in the literature, in the repositories of over 100 research or industrial institutions and Federal agencies, and in the files of many individual scientists.

The Marine Sciences Council has accordingly authorized its staff to undertake a comprehensive study of the Nation's oceanographic data requirements and management steps that could meet a wide variety of needs. This study is to be funded by various Federal agencies who are members or observers of the Council. The effort will be guided by a steering group whose members will be nominated by their agency heads. The study will be conducted on contract and will initially endeavor to identify the various users of data-Federal, State, academic, and industrial-and to catalog their requirements. These users include:

-the "nonapplied" scientist who is interested in the phenomenology of the oceans for scientific objectives but whose knowledge and perception are the basis for a rigorous understanding of the oceans and atmosphere;

-the naval planner concerned with antisubmarine warfare who must understand undersea phenomena that aid concealment; -the climatologist who must acquire and analyze large quantities of often seemingly unrelated information in order to understand local, regional, and world climate;

—the meteorologist, oceanographer, and seismologist who are concerned with the influence of the oceans on the weather over ocean and land areas and who must warn of hurricane, storm surge, and of tsunami sea waves of destructive character;

-industrial managers undertaking expensive offshore mining or oildrilling operations who need information on the ocean bed and water conditions above it;

—the fisherman, commercial or sport, who will be able to draw on oceanic data and aircraft, or spacecraft-derived surveillance, to predict location and density of fish stocks;