The SAON Networks Database

Hugo Ahlenius, Nordpil, Sweden Jan René Larsen, AMAP Secretariat

Simon Wilson, AMAP Secretariat

SAON Board Meeting, 1-2 October 2012, Potsdam

,

The SAON Steering Group (SG) questionnaire • The SAON Steering Group formulated a questionnaire

that was presented, mainly to the countries • Several countries used the reports to structuree their

national reports: Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Poland, Russia, USA. Some reports were structured differently

• The reports have been digitized in a cooperation between Hugo Ahlenius, Nordpil and the AMAP Secretariat. The work has been finanzed by AMAP and is a available at the the SAON web site and through the AMAP Project Directory

The questions - I • Name/acronym/contact person/web site• Main objective of network• Member of or connected to a global network• Type of activity/Theme: Atmosphere/Terrestrial

ecosystem, including freshwater/Marine ecosystem/Coastal/Ocean/Cryosphere/Human & socio-economic/Space physics

• Type of activity/Location• Type of activity/Community based• Type of activity/Coordination

The questions - II • Main variables• When operational (year)• Geographical coverage (countries)• Data archive/centre, including Web site• Data availability: Metadata only/All data/Charge or no

charge for data

The sources • Twenty national reports from 13 countries (Canada,

Denmark, Greenland, Finland, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Norway, Poland, Russia, Spain, Sweden, and USA) for the period 2008-2012

• Three international organisation reports (Hausgarten, ICES, WMO)

The data base – the statistics • Information from 20 countries and 127 organisations

were processed• A total of 267 activities/projects from 196 networks,

covering 603 positions/sites/stations were identified and recorded

• 40 themes were involved: Aerosols, Air-sea interaction, Atmosphere, Climate, Coastal, Conservation, Cryosphere…

• The activities have been coded according to scales: Local, national, regional, arctic, global

The activities broken down on countries

The activities broken down on scales

The activities broken down on themes

The questions - III 1a: How can the SAON Steering Group best assist you?

1b: What do you see as the role of the SAON SG?

2: What are the critical issues facing your observing program or data and information management program?

How can the SAON Steering Group best assist you?

What do you see as the role of the SAON SG?

What are the critical issues facing your observing program or data and information management program?

The challenges – the data structure • Some countries have submitted several reports, which

contain internal contradictions. There have been problems updating old reporting with newer reporting

• Additional classification may cover: national monitoring networks, field stations, research plots

• Proposals for improvements: Introduce periodicity/frequency: annual/monthly/continous/seasonal etc.

• Sites’ are not always one postion, but may be plots (e.g. sampling plots) or study areas (e.g. a glacier).

The challenges – future maintenance • Data are alreday outdated, have bugs, etc• Future maintenance:

• Submission of national reports as updates (no)• Web interface for maintanance• Electronic submission of structured data records

More information

www.arcticobserving.org -> Networks