Alaska Ocean Observing System

National Ocean Observing

National Federation of Regional Associations

The coastal component is required to assess and predict the effects of weather, climate and human activities on the state of the coastal ocean, on its ecosystems and living resources, and on the nation's economy. It encompasses the nation's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), the Great Lakes, and estuaries and consists of a national backbone of observations of the EEZ and a set of nested regional observing systems.

More information on the national backbone and regional observing systems is available from the National Federation of Regional Associations.

NOAA IOOS Program Office

The Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) is designed to enhance our ability to collect, deliver, and use ocean information. The goal is to provide continuous data on our open oceans, coastal waters, and Great Lakes in the formats, rates, and scales required by scientists, managers, businesses, governments, and the public to support research and inform decision-making.

In 2007, NOAA established a new program to coordinate NOAA's IOOS activities. The mission of the Program Office is to "lead the integration of ocean, coastal, and Great Lakes observing capabilities, in collaboration with Federal and non-Federal partners, to maximize access to data and generation of information products, inform decision making, and promote economic, environmental, and social benefits to our nation and the world."

In 2008, The NOAA IOOS program initiated development of a Data Integration Framework (DIF) to improve management and delivery of ocean observations. The DIF will establish the technical infrastructure, standards, and protocols needed to improve delivery of IOOS core oceanographic variables defined in the U.S. IOOS Development Plan.

NOAA will complete initial development of the DIF in 2010, providing seven IOOS variables from multiple observing system data sources in consistent formats expected to achieve improvements in a select set of NOAA's decision-support tools. See the IOOS Catalog of DIF and other services.

Ocean.US

Ocean.US is the national program office established to coordinate the development of the IOOS. The IOOS is being developed in two closely related components that encompass the broad range of scales required to assess, detect and predict the effects of global climate change, the weather and human activities.

This office closed in 2008; see the official announcement. The Ocean.us website is being maintained; it has publications, reports and information about past workshops.

Global Ocean Observing System

The global ocean component is an international collaboration to develop a global observing system. The Global Ocean Observing System is designed to improve forecasts and assessments of weather, climate, ocean states, and boundary conditions for regional observing systems. It is anticipated to be part of the Global Earth Observing System of Systems, or GEOSS (Interagency Working Group on Earth Observations and Group on Earth Observations).