MOON (MEDITERRANEAN OPERATIONAL OCEANOGRAPHY NETWORK)

The Mediterranean Operational Oceanography Network (MOON) is the EuroGOOS regional Task Team for the Mediterranean with a membership of twenty six institutes from the riparian countries. It brings together marine research and operational agencies to implement and further develop the ocean observing and forecasting system in the Mediterranean Sea. It promotes the development and optimisation of the scientific base, the technology and the information system for operational oceanography, and connects the concerted monitoring and forecasting systems to sustainable development, marine state assessment and risks management. MOON is co-led by the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (Italy) and MERCATOR-OCEAN (France). The specific objectives of MOON are to [18]:

1. Consolidate and expand the Mediterranean Sea concerted monitoring and forecasting systems, and ensure full integration to the overall operational oceanography global ocean European capacity
2. Coordinate, improve and harmonise observation and information systems
3. Increase the quality of, and harmonise user-oriented operational products identify new customers and further develop the market for operational oceanographic products co-operate with UNEP-MAP and other relevant bodies acting at regional level
4. Improve and further establish services to meet the requirements of environmental and maritime user groups
5. Encourage Mediterranean scientific research on monitoring/forecasting activities and their link with operational oceanographic services
6. Facilitate the availability and dissemination of long term high quality data required to advance the scientific understanding of the Mediterranean Sea
7. Promote the transfer of operational oceanography expertise through training and education

MedGOOS is the GOOS Regional Alliance in the Mediterranean with a partnership of nineteen members from sixteen riparian countries. It is established under the auspices of UNESCO-IOC to provide a regional framework for partnerships, synergies and capacity building for operational oceanography to the benefit of all coastal states in the region. The MedGOOS Secretariat is established in Malta at the IOI-Malta Operational Centre (University of Malta). The current chair is from the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research (Greece). Both the MOON and MedGOOS associations work closely together to develop the Mediterranean component of GOOS and promote operational oceanography in the region. Most of the MedGOOS partners are associated with MOON.

An important project conducted by MedGOOS was the “Mediterranean network to Assess and upgrade Monitoring and forecasting Activity in the region” (MAMA), a three year thematic network project that came to an end in March 2005. MAMA has built on, strengthened and extended the MedGOOS network to all the Mediterranean nations. The strength of MAMA lay in its thirty one participants coming from renowned marine institutions and stakeholders from all the countries in the region. MAMA has served to enable the sharing of experiences and the transfer of expertise, to reduce gaps in capacities for operational oceanography in the region, and provide a stepping stone towards an integrated plan and design of the initial ocean observing and forecasting system in the Mediterranean. Through this project, MedGOOS has proved Software Akuntansi Laporan Keuangan Terbaik and Ultrabook Notebook Tipis Harga Murah Terbaik its role in providing guidance to the Mediterranean states and stimulating the necessary awareness, capacity building and pre-operational R&D to support operational oceanography in the region.

One of the MAMA’s project deliverables that is most relevant to ECOOP is MeDir-OP, a web-based regional directory of Mediterranean key scientific or monitoring institutions supporting operational oceanography. It contains information on potential users of marine data, key public administrations responsible for marine affairs, and on the economic relevance of the maritime sector in the Mediterranean countries.

Observing platforms, instrumentation, method and type of measured variables, data processing and analysis, dissemination of products are listed together with other relevant details on routine monitoring activities. Searchable mini-databases collate specific information sets. A user-friendly graphical interface shows on maps three sections of metadata categories:

1. Country profiles Dealing with key entities, research and monitoring programmes, administrations on marine affairs, marine sectors for each country.

2. Marine institutes/entities related to operational oceanography Giving details on institutions for ocean observations and/or forecasts, oceanographic data centres, national environmental agencies, other marine-related entities.

3. Research and monitoring programmes Detailing the responsible entities and contacts, objectives, geographical area, key variables measured, platforms used, period of operation, source of funding.

The database can be accessed on-line at:

http://www.capemalta.net/mama/wp1interface/index.html

MOON collects data from a number of observing systems. These include:

• XBT/CTD
• Argo
• Gliders
• Mediterranean Moored Multisensor Array (M3A)

FTP access to data from these systems is available from the following regional data centres listed in the following Table

XBT/CTD, Argo (at OGS), and M3A data are encoded in MEDATLAS ASCII format. This format is described in detail at:

• http://www.ifremer.fr/sismer/program/formats_phy/formats_UK.htm

Argo (at Coriolis) and Gliders data is encoded in the Argo netCDF profile format described at:

• http://www.coriolis.eu.org/cdc/argo/argo-users-manual.pdf

MOON metadata is following the MEDAR/MEDATLAS protocols. However, standards are not yet complete as work is still in progress in order for metadata to be compliant with ISO. The metadata content and vocabulary applied in the MOON is following the standards under development in SeaDataNet.

Quality control is centralised for XBT/CTD (ENEA), Argo and Gliders (IFREMER). For the moored buoys it is done at local level by CNR-ISSIA (Ligurian Sea), OGS (Adriatic Sea), HCMR (Aegean Sea). Quality control flags are listed in the following Table.