Introduction
The goals of the U.S. IOOS National Glider Data Assembly Center:
- Develop a simple, fully self-describing NetCDF file specification that preserves the resolution of the original glider data sets.
- Provide glider operators with a simple process for registering and submitting glider data sets to a centralized storage location.
- Provide public access to glider data sets via existing web services and standards, in a variety of well-known formats.
- Facilitate the distribution of glider data sets on the Global Telecommunication System.
- Work with the National Centers for Environmental Information to create a permanent data archive.
The NGDAC accepts a simple NetCDF file containing water column measurements collected by a glider during a single profile (see glider sampling terminology here). Groups of these NetCDF files, gathered during a deployment (also known as a trajectory), are uploaded to the NGDAC by individual glider operators. Once they arrive at the NGDAC, the files are validated for compliance, aggregated into a single dataset representing the deployment/trajectory and distributed via ERDDAP and THREDDS end-points. The data sets served by the NGDAC provide access to the trajectory/deployment data both as time-series and on a profile-by-profile basis.
Transmission of the data sets via the Global Telecommunication System is made possible by the National Data Buoy Center, which accesses the data sets from the ERDDAP and/or THREDDS end-points. After performing some internal quality checks, the profiles are encoded into BUFR format and released on the Global Telecommunication System, making them available for assimilation by regional and global scale ocean forecasting models.
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