Best Practice Data Standards for Discrete Chemical Oceanographic Observations

Li-Qing Jiang , Denis Pierrot , Rik Wanninkhof , Richard Feely , Bronte Tilbrook , Simone Alin , Leticia Barbero , Robert Byrne , Brendan Carter , Andrew Dickson , Jean-Pierre Gattuso (1, 2) , Dana Greeley , Mario Hoppema , Matthew Humphreys , Johannes Karstensen , Nico Lange , Siv Lauvset , Ernie Lewis , Are Olsen , Fiz Pérez , Christopher Sabine , Jonathan Sharp , Toste Tanhua , Thomas Trull , Anton Velo , Andrew Allegra , Paul Barker , Eugene Burger , Wei-Jun Cai , Chen-Tung Chen , Jessica Cross , Hernan Garcia , Jose Martin Hernandez-Ayon , Xinping Hu , Alex Kozyr , Chris Langdon , Kitack Lee , Joe Salisbury , Zhaohui Aleck Wang , Liang Xue

1 LOV - Laboratoire d'océanographie de Villefranche
2 IDDRI - Institut du Développement Durable et des Relations Internationales

Effective data management plays a key role in oceanographic research as cruise-based data, collected from different laboratories and expeditions, are commonly compiled to investigate regional to global oceanographic processes. Here we describe new and updated best practice data standards for discrete chemical oceanographic observations, specifically those dealing with column header abbreviations, quality control flags, missing value indicators, and standardized calculation of certain properties. These data standards have been developed with the goals of improving the current practices of the scientific community and promoting their international usage. These guidelines are intended to standardize data files for data sharing and submission into permanent archives. They will facilitate future quality control and synthesis efforts and lead to better data interpretation. In turn, this will promote research in ocean biogeochemistry, such as studies of carbon cycling and ocean acidification, on regional to global scales. These best practice standards are not mandatory. Agencies, institutes, universities, or research vessels can continue using different data standards if it is important for them to maintain historical consistency. However, it is hoped that they will be adopted as widely as possible to facilitate consistency and to achieve the goals stated above.

Domaines: Océanographie; Environnement et Société; Milieux et Changements globaux; Interfaces continentales, environnement; Océan, Atmosphère

Li-Qing Jiang, Denis Pierrot, Rik Wanninkhof, Richard Feely, Bronte Tilbrook, et al.. Best Practice Data Standards for Discrete Chemical Oceanographic Observations. Frontiers in Marine Science, 2022, 8, ⟨10.3389/fmars.2021.705638⟩. ⟨hal-03795813⟩