QARTOD V Final Report: Fifth Workshop on the QA/QC of Real-time Oceanographic Data

Abstract

Quality Assurance of Real-time Oceanographic Data (QARTOD) workshops are convened and attended by representatives from agencies and institutions with an interest in the quality assurance and quality control of oceanographic observations, including the Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) community. Attendance is unrestricted, and participants are supported by their own organizations. In several cases, support for an invited speaker has been provided. The workshops bring together people from all aspects of data acquisition and delivery—those deploying systems, those responsible for the real-time quality control, database managers, people with an interest in the development of effective metadata, and data users. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Weather Service (NWS) National Data Buoy Center (NDBC) hosted the first meeting in 2003 in Bay St. Louis, MS. Over 80 participants attended with the goal of developing minimum standards for calibration, quality assurance (QA) and quality control (QC) methods, and metadata content. The workshop resulted in a report that summarized the recommendations on these issues and on future workshops. QARTOD II was held February 28-March 2, 2005 in Norfolk, VA, and it focused on calibration and metadata QA/QC issues for current (acoustic Doppler current profiling and high frequency radar surface current mapping) and wave measurements, primarily from buoys. QARTOD III was held November 2-4, 2005 at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, CA. It continued the work on waves, including those using acoustic Doppler technologies, and current measurements, including high frequency (HF) radar and in situ observations, and commenced work on conductivity, temperature, and density (CTD) measurements. QARTOD IV was held at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) June 21-23, 2006, and the focus shifted from QC tests to data quality assessment. QARTOD V was co-chaired by Dr. Bill Burnett (NOAA/NWS/NDBC) and Mark Bushnell (NOAA National Ocean Service [NOS] Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services [CO-OPS] and continued the pursuit of new standards, notably for a variety of biogeochemical parameters such as dissolved oxygen (DO), turbidity, and chlorophyll, and the evaluation and acceptance of previously developed standards for waves and in situ currents relating to acoustic Doppler quality control. The agenda included plenary presentations describing activities by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) (Dan Sullivan, Co-Chair, Methods and Data Comparability Board), NOAA’s Chesapeake Bay Interpretive Buoy System or CBIBS Data Management System (Henry Pierce, Tellus Applied Sciences), IOOS (Charles Alexander, IOOS Operations Chief, Data Integration Framework), the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (Janet Fredericks, Q2O, WHOI Martha’s Vineyard Coastal Observatory), and the Alliance for Coastal Technologies or ACT (Mario Tamburri).