INFORMATION SHEET ON NATIONAL OCEANOGRAPHIC DATA CENTRE FRANCE

Name of Centre
SISMER : Système d'Informations Scientifiques pour la MER

Full address:
IFREMER
Institut Français de Recherche pour L'Exploitation de la Mer
Centre de Brest - B.P. 70
29 280 PLOUZANE
FRANCE

Communication:
Telephone: +33/0 298 22 45 41
Fax: +33/0 298 22 46 44
E-mail: sismer@ifremer.fr
Web pages: http://www.ifremer.fr/sismer/

Contact person:
Catherine Maillard
Telephone: +33/0 298 22 42 79
E-mail: Catherine.Maillard@ifremer.fr

Background and role:
1990 has been a turning point in the French oceanographic data management, with the creation of SISMER service as national data centre. This decision was following five years of poor data management in oceanography, except for a limited number of projects. The new service inherited the data holdings of the former BNDO.

SISMER roles as NODC are to:

• design and operate scientific information systems and databases in the domain of the sea
  
• set the standards of quality to be respected for data archiving
  
• maintain an inventory of information system and databases, the scientists in charge of them and rules for their circulation
  
• represent IFREMER within national and international authorities concerned with the management of scientific data
  

National activities:
The French national oceanographic data centre is in charge of maintaining the inventory of the French oceanographic cruises and of the basic data sets collected during these cruises.

SISMER provides the access either through data request or on-line access to the archived data sets which are : the physical and chemical database, the geophysical database and the data of the environmental monitoring network.

International activities:

Data exchange

MAST programs:

• MEDATLAS (Mediterranean hydrographic atlas for temperature and salinity) with the co-operation of HNODC (Greece) and Spain (IEO).
  
• MATER (Data management of the multidisciplinary data collected during the Mediterranean target project) with the co-operation of HONDC (Greece) and OGS (Italy).
  
• Contribution to EDMED project for the oceanographic data sets inventory for France.
  
• TOGA/WOCE upper Ocean Thermal Data Assembly Global Centre

• CLIVAR: extension of the XBT TOGA/WOCE centre to the new program Climate Variability and Predictability.
  
• MAST MEDATLAS II: Extension of the MEDATLAS project with the co-operation of countries out of the European Union.

Data holdings:

• Sea cruises inventory: 4290 cruises
  
• EDMED: 160 oceanographic data sets description for France
  
• National physical and chemical database: 11300 CTD profiles, 32500 bottle profiles and 1400 current meter time series.
  
• National Geophysical data bank: 308 vertical bathymetry cruises among which 235 include multibeam bathymetry, 165 gravity and 223 magnetics. The vertical bathymetry, the gravity and magnetics are internationally exchanged at the MGD77 format.
  
• TOGA/WOCE data set with about 310 000 profiles. From 1985 data were collected in the area 30°N-30°S (TOGA project), from 1990 data are collected in the global ocean (WOCE project).
  
• MEDATLAS data set: 15800 CTD profiles, 34000 bottle profiles and more than 147 000 XBT and MBT profiles.
  
• QUADRIGE: Coastal environment monitoring database, national database updated in real time by 20 laboratories, 2600 sampling stations, 1 500 000 analysis since 1974.
  
• BIOCEAN: Biological database which handles descriptions, taxonomy and digital images of benthic and hydrothermal ecosystems : 60 cruises, 30 000 samples.

• Annual collection of the French sea cruises - 1977
  
• Catalogue of the French oceanographic data sets
  
• Thematic catalogues of the French cruises (CTD cruises, Bottle cruises, time series cruises, Sea-beam cruises on the R/V Jean Charcot)
  
• TOGA/WOCE annual reports

Exchange media:
ftp, CD-ROM, exabytes