The long-term marine data set collected by The National Data Buoy Center

Abstract

According to the authors of "Long Time Series Measurements in the Coastal Ocean: A Workshop" (C.L. Vincent, T.C. Royer, and K.H., Brink, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, November, 1993), "Long time series measurements (in excess of 10 years duration) in the coastal ocean are important to science and society. They provide a measure of the health of the coastal ocean and are essential to distinguish long-term trends, caused by anthropogenic effects or climate change for example, from natural variability. They provide a basis for a new hypothesis about processes operating in the coastal ocean and a range of conditions for testing predictive capabilities. In addition, they document rare and/or catastrophic events that may play a critical role in coastal processes." When that report was written, 8 years ago, The National Data Buoy Center (NDBC) had 55 stations in the 10 to 100 years of data category. NDBC buoys and Coastal-Marine Automated Network (C-MAN) stations, because of their continued importance to the National Weather Service (NWS), can be assumed to be long-term. That means that the manager engaged in maritime commerce, scientist involved in marine research, commercial fisherman, and recreational boater can depend on NDBC data when making decisions. The value of these data is validated by the three million hits on NDBC's Web site in an average month. NDBC has a history of providing high-quality data in a timely manner to the users of its data. That group, originally comprised primarily of forecasters, has expanded many times over as a result of the Internet. It has been a challenge to meet the needs of such a diverse group of real-time users, but NDBC has accepted that challenge and continues to respond to the needs of those who rely on the data. This paper reviews the quantity and quality of NDBC data. It discusses how and where the data are collected, and it explains how it can be obtained. It also evaluates how successful NDBC has been in collecting quality data and discusses what is being done to maintain, even improve, the quantity of data made available to those who depend on it.