SMHI, with over a century’s experience in marine environmental monitoring, offers an array of Virtual Access (VA) Services rooted in deep knowledge of data collection, management, and presentation.
Their services include:
- SHARKweb & SHARK API: These platforms provide delayed mode data, predominantly covering national environmental monitoring data. These are reliable reservoirs of historical and past short-term data.
- Open data website, OpendataView, and Opendata API: These services offer real-time or near real-time oceanographic and marine biological data, providing immediate insights into the current state of our oceans.
SMHI’s marine environmental monitoring encompasses everything from sampling to knowledge dissemination. It undertakes national marine environmental monitoring tasks, processing and analysing data to communicate the ocean status to a diverse audience, ensuring this data is quality-controlled, processed, summarised, archived, and available to an international audience.
Their main stakeholders include other governmental agencies, county administrative boards, municipalities, researchers, and the general public with an interest in marine environmental status.
In alignment with the broader objectives of JERICO-RI and coastal observation, their services play a pivotal role in fostering cohesive European marine observations. By offering both delayed mode and real-time data, they ensure comprehensive temporal coverage of the marine environment. This dual approach provides stakeholders with historical context and immediate insights, aiding in robust decision-making processes, research undertakings, and policy formulations that champion sustainable coastal and marine ecosystems.
With the funding and support received from JERICO-RI, their services have undergone significant enhancements. The integration capacities of SHARK platforms have been improved, and the real-time data provision through their opendata services has been streamlined and expanded. These modifications have not only increased the breadth and depth of data available but also enhanced the user experience, ensuring that stakeholders have immediate and seamless access to vital marine data.
Looking ahead, they are focused on continuous refinement and expansion, in particular making their data FAIR. In the coming year, they plan to roll out updates enhancing the user interface of their platforms. In the subsequent two-year period, the integration of more diverse marine data sources and continuing their work with implementing an ERDDAP server with the incorporation of more advanced visualisations and analytics will take precedence. Long-term, their vision is to establish their services as the gold standard for marine environmental data, with wider coverage, faster processing, and even more intuitive user experiences, cementing their role in the JERICO-RI project and marine observation at large.
In conclusion, SMHI’s commitment to marine environmental monitoring, supported by JERICO-RI, ensures that their oceans’ health and status remain transparent, accessible, and comprehensible to all stakeholders.
