GLOS membership drive underway
by Jennifer Read, GLOS Executive Director
The Board of Directors of the Great Lakes Observing System Regional Association is hosting its annual meeting April 6-7 in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The purpose of the meeting is two-fold. As in the past, we're going to showcase the past year's activities and highlight progress on implementing the projects that address regionally identified priorities and outline plans for the coming year. This year we have a second, very important, activity and that is to engage our first members in a discussion about GLOS's future direction. The Board of Directors is very interested in hearing what would make members' commitment to GLOS worthwhile over the short, medium and long-term.
The Board of Directors has been soliciting members, agencies and organizations, from among our regional partners who use and/or provide data. The Board sees several benefits for prospective members including:
- The ability to provide input into research and development of Great Lakes St. Lawrence River data and information products;
- Leverage for your organization's monitoring/observation activities;
- Easy delivery of data and information to your target audiences via standardized and integrated data management and communications platforms;
- The opportunity for collaborative opportunities and networking around data integration and product development; and
- Influencing the direction of GLOS activities and helping set priorities for future development to enhance the value of regional observations to your organization.
Interested agencies and organizations are encouraged to contact Jennifer Read, executive director, for membership materials and application at jenread@umich.edu, 734.936.3622.
Status of legislation to authorize IOOS
The legislation to authorize the Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) is very close to passage in Congress, after seven long years! The legislation is part of a large omnibus public lands bill (H.R. 146 / S. 22), which includes five ocean/Great Lakes-related bills including authorization for IOOS. H.R. 146 was amended to include the text of S. 22, which passed a cloture vote in the Senate early this week and is now awaiting final passage. Passage of this legislation would be a critical step forward in developing IOOS. The legislation will:
- Establish the organizational, legal and financial framework for the IOOS program
- Clarify the role of the regions (including GLOS) as part of the national program
- Provide the regions with liability protection for the provision of data and forecasts
- Establish NOAA as the lead for this interagency program
- Establish an advisory committee to ensure the program is responsive to the needs of users
Contact: Josie Quintrell, executive director, National Federation of Regional Associations for Coastal and Ocean Observing, jquintrell@suscom-maine.net, 207.725.8143.
NOAA hosts IOOS Industry Briefing
On March 12, NOAA conducted an open briefing to industry and other interested commercial and non-profit organizations concerning Data Management and Communications (DMAC) as it relates to the national Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS). DMAC encompasses the part of IOOS that includes data integration -- making ocean and coastal data compatible and easily accessible to save users time and money. NOAA is guiding the DMAC effort by adopting and adapting standards for such things as units of measure, data formats, search and retrieval of data, and descriptions of sensors. The session provided attendees with a detailed progress report on the development of a functional IOOS DMAC for the United States in a national and regional context, including recent and current programs, as well as future plans. Representatives from the U.S. Navy, Geological Survey, Environmental Protection Agency, and the Army Corps of Engineers joined NOAA for the briefing. For more information, visit www.fbo.gov/spg/DOC/NOAA/AGAMD/IOOS_DMAC_Briefing/listing.html or contact Charlie Alexander, charles.alexander@noaa.gov, 301.427.2420.
A more general IOOS Briefing for legislative staff, co-sponsored by NOAA and NFRA, was held at the U.S. Capitol on March 4 and involved a panel of people from around the country who use or are interested in using observing information for various purposes. Among the speakers was Gary White, director of the Macomb County Division of Environmental Health Services (Michigan), who discussed the importance of IOOS/GLOS observations to address water quality issues in the Great Lakes region.
Google Ocean unveiled
Google's newest application, Google Ocean, was released on Feb. 2. See earth.google.com/ocean. You can download the new Google Earth 5.0 here: earth.google.com.
The previous data management developer for GLOS, Pete Giencke, is now with Google and worked on the team that developed Google Ocean over the last year. Pete was proud to feature some GLOS data in the current release. The IOOS community has been working with Google to ensure that data served through IOOS is compliant with new Google tools and vice versa. This partnership is broadening the audience for IOOS data and discovering new user communities in the process.
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