A friendly chat with Pascale Lherminier – November 2024
EuroGO-SHIP project aims to facilitate the adoption of common data quality control procedures, testing software and methods for wider adoption. As we approach our third and final year of the project, we felt it was high-time to check in with Pascale Lherminier, Work Package 2 Lead, and put a spotlight on this important work.
Is it true that you have been fixing pipes?
Yes. We are fixing pipes—data stream pipes actually—fixing, improving pipes and creating new pipes where they don’t exist. This is part of our focus in Work Package Two, looking at data curation and data streams for all Ocean Essential variables, including current velocities from ADCP sensors.
It conjures a certain image, fixing pipes. How are you finding them and how are you ensuring that they are delivering the best data?
Well, it starts with the acquisition and curation of data because this is a main goal for EuroGO-SHIP to facilitate the delivery of high quality data. So we are working on open source software that helps scientists to qualify their data either onboard or in delayed-mode after the cruise. And these open source software applications (see below) are very useful because the expertise is built in, the process is automated and this helps with consistency in quality control; and the standards are based on the level one parameters or essential ocean variables that are required by the International GO-SHIP organisation.
After we acquire the data and the Quality Control (QC) is completed, the data gets transferred to recognized databases. So the ‘pipes’ refer to the stream of data in real time from ship to data centre. But there is a problem now in that a principal Investigator (PI) of a cruise must send the data to different databases and has to ensure that there is no mismatch between the data. And we all need to coordinate this, amongst the community, so that the stream of the data is clear for everybody.
EuroGO-SHIP AtlantOS_QC v1.5.0 – doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10015794
And this is where EuroGO-SHIP comes in?
Yes, our work is to make sure that the data is good and it is actually the same data across different databases with good and consistent meta data, and with the FAIR principles.
And this work, piloting the methods and standards, this is what led to finding a broken pipe?
Exactly. That’s what we are trying to do with all ship data, ensure that the pipes that exist are working properly, that data is streaming from the ship to the data centre. As an example, we discovered that data that was sent in real time from some ships did not make it through the stream to the ECMWF data centre where it was meant to be used in forecast models. There was a pipe that was broken, so we fixed it.
Sounds like a monumental task. How will you manage it?
We have been piloting these activities on European GO-SHIP cruises, so it’s not a huge test. What we’re expecting is that all the good practices we are developing during these cruises, which requires the carrier quality, high quality, will be useful for the whole ocean observation community.
How does EuroGO-SHIP fit into the International GO-SHIP organisation?
Many scientists in the EuroGO-SHIP consortium are members of GO-SHIP, many of us are actually on the GO-SHIP steering committee. At the international level, GO-SHIP is an organisation that has standards for oceanographic cruises. For example, we have to go coast to coast and we need to measure GO-SHIP level one parameters from the surface to the bottom of the ocean.
At the European level, we have standards too, but we really need to discuss and share our expertise and standards with the broader ship-based hydrography community, and to be more organised as a community to improve the efficiency of the European network. And in EuroGO-SHIP, we aim to agree on the standards and advocate for their adoption, and to have the same standards of GO-SHIP.
GO-SHIP is the Global Ocean Ship-Based Hydrographic Investigation Program. It brings together scientists with interests in physical oceanography, the carbon cycle, marine biogeochemistry and ecosystems, and other users and collectors of hydrographic data to develop a globally coordinated network of sustained hydrographic sections as part of the global ocean/climate observing system.
What will the legacy of EuroGO-SHIP be after the three year project ends?
For EuroGO-SHIP to have the impact that the International GO-SHIP has, it is fundamental that we become a European Research Infrastructure so we can build on the work we have done in this Horizon Europe Project. Everybody in the consortium has been working really well together and it’s not just a three year snapshop. It’s a long term effort that we are preparing for, because technologies keep changing and also new countries want to participate toward the observation effort.
As a Research Infrastructure we can continue to work together, to discuss more easily and compare our analysis and enrich our approaches. We will work with countries within Europe cohesively. If this momentum is not facilitated, then we may go back to having a fragmented landscape where we do not work alongside each other. We face a lot of the same difficulties and we need to find and share the solutions. Together.
At the two-year mark of the project, do you have a personal highlight?
Yes, we facilitated, for the first time, the delivery of qualified ocean current data from ship to SeaDataNet. There have been other types of data successfully transmitted from ships to SeaDataNet but during this project, we saw the first instance with ocean current data; this is important data that can be used as input for models that will allow us to compare our understanding of the ocean with what the actual state of it is. And this crucial data is also used to better describe the currents of the ocean, which are key, of course, for understanding climate and particularly to better describe the variability. I was particularly involved in this milestone, which began more than 10 years ago with a first step achieved in the European project AtlantOS.
We’ve spent a few minutes talking about ocean data, and you’ve spent your career focusing on it, so what exactly ignites your passion for the work, for the ocean?
What I love is the contrast between us humans who are so small, and the ocean which is so big, and we are trying to understand how it works. I find it fascinating that we are able to better understand and to better describe what’s happening in the ocean. My main motivation is the beauty of it, the beauty of the ocean and our relation to the ocean. And also, the curiosity I have in trying to understand how it works.
And I love data because data is real and offers the possibility to tell the story of the ocean.
By Pascale Lherminier, IFREMER | November, 2024
About the author
Name: Pascale Lherminier
Work Package: WP 1-6
Organisation: IFREMER, France
