The challenge of integrating metrologically significant information in Ocean Data reporting and exchange
Creators: name: Nair, Rajesh
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2024
Subjects: Ocean Data reporting and exchange
Metrology
Marine data quality

description: Continuing developments in marine observing technologies are slowly but surely increasing our ability to monitor the seas and oceans holistically over a wide range of spatial and temporal scales. The flexibility and coverage afforded by similar progress have revolutionized research on Climate Change and related phenomena like Ocean Acidification, with a surge in distributed sensor networks and globally coordinated programs for real-time in-situ ocean observation. However, despite the increasing sophistication of instrumentation, platforms and measuring techniques, the routine implementation of new and emerging observing technologies in Ocean Science and Management will ultimately depend on their capability to provide usable marine environmental data reliably. This will require attuning the scientific data acquisition steps and the data handling architecture of similar technologies to the requirements and recommendations of the international frameworks governing marine data quality. 

The data quality paradigm that is currently gaining ground in the field of marine observation is complex and multidimensional, with a heavy emphasis on “fitness-for-purpose”, a requisite that is sure to impact the implementation of existing mature observing technologies also. The shift in focus to “suitability at point of use” has a number of important implications: (1) the quality of data will vary depending on how they will be used; (2) the quality of data will need to be viewed  in terms of the characteristics of the results of the underlying measurements;  (3) the number of “data quality dimensions” that must be selected to assess the quality of data should be sufficient to describe their usability with respect to requirements. Of these, the first two should be particularly amenable to interpretation using mainstream metrological approaches. The advantage is that generators and users of marine environmental data can make use of an already established internationally recognized and accepted frame of reference for communicating/exchanging relevant information through the work of the BIPM together with the WMO. However, the nature of marine measurements, characterized by a vast variety of variables, instrumentation and instrument calibration methodologies, discordance regarding reference material (or the lack thereof) and poor traceability to the SI for many measurands, will require adapting “enshrined” metrological principles to capture effective measuring realities and specificities without unduly sacrificing formal rigor.

Here, we describe the main elements of a data quality framework underscoring “fitness-for-purpose”, discuss its implications from the perspective of ocean observations, and outline a very basic scheme aimed at incorporating some useful practical metrological information while reporting/sharing data coming from such observations (i.e., information useful in comparing data and their reliability with respect to end use requirements). The effort falls within the sphere of the following recommendations from the BIPM-WMO 2022 workshop: collaboration between observational scientists and metrologists on methodology development with metrological principles embedded (Need 1 B.1 [a]), addressing gaps in FRMs For ECVs and EOVs (Need 1B.8 [h]), and identification of the main components of uncertainty (Need 1B.9 [i]).