Improvements in Data Management Practices within West Florida Shelf Coastal Ocean Monitoring and Prediction System

In this paper, we describe the improvements that are being carried out in data management practices within West Florida Shelf Coastal Ocean Monitoring and Prediction System (COMPS). COMPS, has been in operation since 1997 providing near real-time weather and numerical ocean circulation models data needed for public, federal, state and local emergency management officials and researchers via Internet (http://comps.marine.usf.edu). COMPS program has grown since 1997, and presently we maintain twelve coastal and eight offshore buoy weather monitoring stations located along the coast and offshore of the West Florida Shelf. In addition to in-situ weather monitoring platforms, we also maintain a Hi-Frequency radar network that provides surface currents up to 200 km from the shore. With the growth in the COMPS program, and its participation in various Regional and National Ocean observing system data management related activities and projects, we took a project to make improvements in data management practices and COMPS web site. Preliminary results are presented here.