The Approach to Cyberinfrastructure for the Ocean Observatories Initiative

In the oceanographic research, the Ocean Sciences Division of the National Science Foundation has implemented the Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) program to develop and deploy a network of science-driven ocean observing systems. The OOI comprises three types of interconnected observatories spanning global, regional and coastal scales. The global component is a network of moored buoys linked to shore via satellite to address planetary-scale problems. A regional cabled observatory will ´wire´ a single region in the Northeast Pacific Ocean with a high speed optical and power grid. The coastal component of the 001 will expand upon existing coastal observing assets, providing extended opportunities to characterize the effects of high frequency, high energy, loss forcing on the coastal environment. The Cyberinfrastructure (CI) constitutes the integrating element that links and binds all three marine observatories and their associated sensors into a coherent system-of-systems - a global multi-scale observatory. The CI facilitates the analysis of real time and retrospective data and their assimilation into models. The CI will break down the traditional barriers posed by data and technology access, and empower traditional as well as new classes of users with increased understanding of the oceans. Thus it is a crucial component that will facilitate the arrival of a new epoch the instrumented earth, where a globally accessible continuous signal representing the now state of the earth system will inform our understanding of its past, present and predicted future.