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What is IOOS?

The Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) is a system of systems that routinely and continuously provides quality controlled data and information on current and future states of the oceans and Great Lakes from the global scale of ocean basins to local scales of coastal ecosystems. It is a multidisciplinary system designed to provide data in forms and at rates required by decision makers to address seven societal goals.

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Seven Societal Goals

  1. Improve predictions of climate change and weather and their effects on coastal communities and the nation;
  2. Improve the safety and efficiency of maritime operations;
  3. Mitigate the effects of natural hazards more effectively;
  4. Improve national and homeland security;
  5. Reduce public health risks;
  6. Protect and restore healthy coastal ecosystems more effectively; and
  7. Enable the sustained use of ocean and coastal resources.

Providing the data and information needed to address these goals requires an "integrated" observing system that does the following:

  • Efficiently links observations, data communications and management, and data analysis and modeling (to form an "end-to-end" system);
  • Provides rapid access to multi-disciplinary data from many sources;
  • Serves data and information required to achieve multiple goals that historically have been the domain of separate agencies, offices or programs;
  • Efficiently links advances in science and technology to the development of operational capabilities; and
  • Involves cross-cutting partnerships among federal and state agencies, the private sector, and academic institutions.


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Global and Coastal Observations

The provision of data and information needed to address these goals also requires a hierarchy of observations from the global ocean to coastal ecosystems. Thus, the IOOS is being designed and implemented as two interdependent components, global and coastal. The coastal component consists of a National Backbone (NB) for the Nations Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and Great Lakes, with Regional Coastal Ocean Observing Systems (RCOOSs) nested within it.

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IOOS Subsystems (Click to view)

IOOS Subsystems

The IOOS efficiently links three subsystems:(1) data analysis and modeling, (2) data management and communications, and (3) observations and data telemetry. The modeling and data management (DMAC) subsystems are the IOOS integrators and cannot (and should not) be "stove piped" specifically to any given observing subsystem element or exclusively to the global ocean component, the NB or to RCOOSs.

The "Observing and Data Telemetry Subsystem" consists of coastal and global components which include both remote (satellite-, aircraft- and land-based) and in situ sensing. The coastal component can be further broken down in the National Backbone (NB) and Regional Coastal Ocean Observing Systems (RCOOSs). The NB focuses on the Nations EEZ and Great Lakes; measures and transmits data on core variables needed by allor most regions and for national scale decision making; establishes sentinel stations for early detection of large scale effects of the oceans and land-based inputs; and links global to local scales of variability. RCOOSs enhance the NB by increasing the density of observations and the number of variables measured based on data and information needs of decision makers in the respective regions.

How Does IOOS Relate to Other Emerging Earth Observing Systems?

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The IOOS is the oceans and coasts component of the U.S. Integrated Earth Observation System (IEOS), the U.S. contribution to the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS), and the U.S. contribution to the oceans and coasts component of the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS). GOOS is the oceans and coasts component of the GEOSS. GOOS and GEOSS are both international programs.


Last update: 6 October 2006 - 7:43am