By establishing a network of observation buoys and the creation of a specialized operational center for the processing of the data collected and the production of forecasts, POSEIDON is an infrastructure at the leading edge of modern oceanography in Europe. The network of observation buoys records continuously the physical, biological and chemical parameters of the Greek seas. Those data are then transmitted to the operational center where they are sorted and fed into forecasting models.

The Surface Ocean CO₂ Atlas (SOCAT) is a synthesis activity for quality-controlled, surface ocean fCO₂ (fugacity of carbon dioxide) observations by the international marine carbon research community (>100 contributors). SOCAT data is publicly available, discoverable and citable. SOCAT enables quantification of the ocean carbon sink and ocean acidification and evaluation of ocean biogeochemical models. SOCAT represents a milestone in biogeochemical and climate research and in informing policy. SOCAT data are released in versions. Each succeeding version contains new data sets as well as updates of older ones. The first version of SOCAT was released in 2011, the second and third version followed biennially. Automation allowed annual public releases since version 4. The latest SOCAT version (version 5) has 21.5 million observations from 1957 to 2017 for the global oceans and coastal seas. SOCAT contains data from the VOS, OceanSites network and mooring, buoy data in general as well as calibrated sensor data.

VOS/SOOP tracks are usually repeated several times a year and inform about the marine sinks and sources of atmospheric carbon dioxide on a global bases and their variability. Data from this network has been made available to the scientific community and interested public via the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Centre (CDIAC) Oceans at the Department of Energy, USA, since the early 1990’s where PIs submitted and shared their data. In 2017, CDIAC Ocean will be named Ocean Carbon Data System (OCADS) and join NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI). In 2007, the marine biogeochemistry community coordinated by the International Ocean Carbon Coordination Project (IOCCP), launched the Surface Ocean Carbon Dioxide ATlas (SOCAT) in order to uniformly quality control and format the data with detailed documentation. Underway carbon dioxide data from the VOS network are integrated in SOCAT.

GLODAP is an internally consistent data product for interior ocean “carbon relevant” variables, but in practice this means “everything that is measured from water samples” taken on hydrographic cruises that takes measurements of biogeochemistry, including inorganic carbon measurements. GLODAP was first published in 2004, and a new massively increased version, GLODAPv2, was published in 2016. A new version – GLODAPv2.2018 – will be published in early 2019. GLODAP have three main products: 1) A collection of individual cruise file in a consistent format and 1st level QC, 2) A product that has been bias corrected through 2nd level QC procedures, and 3) an interpolated product on a regular grid.

Data from FerryBoxes on ships of opportunity going on permanent routes are stored inside this database (ferrydata.hzg.de). Parameters are temperature, salinity, chlorophyll-a fluorescence, oxygen and different others. The data model is transect oriented. A data portal to access and visualise the data is also provided.

The mission of OceanSITES is to collect, deliver and promote the use of high-quality data from long-term, high-frequency observations at fixed locations in the open ocean. OceanSITES typically aim to collect multidisciplinary data worldwide from the full-depth water column as well as the overlying atmosphere. OceanSITES delivers high-quality data from long-term, high-frequency observations at fixed locations in the open ocean.

SeaDataNet is a standardized infrastructure for managing the large and diverse marine data sets collected at sea by the oceanographic fleets, the ships of opportunity and the automatic observation systems. The SeaDataNet infrastructure network sand enhances the currently existing infrastructures, which are the national oceanographic data centres or data focal points of 34 countries, active in data collection. The networking of these professional data centres, in a unique virtual data management system provides integrated data sets of standardized quality on-line. As a research infrastructure, SeaDataNet contributes to build research excellence in Europe. SeaDataNet connects together more than 100 data centres aiming at preserving and making re-useable marine observations ranging from ocean physics to chemistry and biology. SeaDataNet infrastructure was implemented during the SeaDataNet project (2006-2011), grant agreement 026212, EU Sixth Framework Programme. The second phase, SeaDataNet 2 project (2011-2015), grant agreement 283607, EU Seventh Framework Programme has upgraded the SeaDataNet infrastructure into an operationally robust and state-of-the-art Pan-European infrastructure for providing up-to-date and high quality access to ocean and marine metadata, data and data products by: setting, adopting and promoting common data management standards, realizing technical and semantic interoperability with other relevant data management systems and initiatives on behalf of science, environmental management, policy making, and economy. SeaDataCloud project (2016-2020), grant agreement 730960, EU H2020 programme, aims at considerably advancing SeaDataNet Services and increasing their usage, adopting cloud and High Performance Computing technology for better performance.

GO-SHIP, the Global Ocean Ship-Based Hydrographic Investigations Program, is conducting repeat hydrography with high accuracy high precision reference measurements of a variety of EOVs through the whole water column. A selection of continent-to-continent full depth sections are repeated at roughly decadal intervals. The data archive for CTD data and bottle data is currently at CCHDO, although the CTD data from European cruises are available at Seadatanet as well.