The present status of the GLOSS network, as seen by the GLOSS Handbook Coordinator and confirmed at the GE/GLOSS meeting held in Bordeaux in February 1995, indicates that 254 of the 308 GLOSS Stations are noted as operational. At the previous GE/GLOSS meeting (Paris, 1992) 233 stations were noted as operational (76%). The non-operational sites are mainly concentrated in the Antarctic region, but there are also gaps around Africa and in the Caribbean. Since the Paris meeting, tide gauges have been installed by the Australians and the French in the Antarctic and Indian Ocean.
The GE reviewed the present status of the GLOSS network and discussed the necessary adjustments on the basis of the criteria developed at the Paris meeting. Particular attention was given to the sites proposed in the GLOSS Implementation Plan which have not yet become operational. Since quite active programmes have been reported in the IOCARIBE (Caribbean) and the IOCEA (East Africa) regions, non-operational gauges from these areas were not considered by the GE in detail. Plans for some new gauges are already underway.
At the Paris meeting of the GE/GLOSS, a draft version of the GLOSS Handbook (Version 2.0) and software package was demonstrated. Since then some further updates have been received and included. In addition, in 1993 some changes to the GLOSS network were agreed, increasing the total number of stations to 308; these have been incorporated into Version 2.0 of the Handbook. This version of the Handbook was distributed to GLOSS National Contacts in 1994, together with mean sea level plots supplied by the PSMSL. This allowed GLOSS National Contacts to check the data held by PSMSL.
Over the last six months the Handbook has been updated with any new information received, and it now also includes information on whether site location maps are available. The software has been upgraded to allow plotting of monthly and annual mean sea level for all the sites where RLR values are available from the PSMSL. These may be plotted on screen, saved to a file or printed.
Further location maps have been received over the last year. Altogether site location maps have been received from 202 of the 308 sites (65%). Of these approximately 50 are in the form requested; the remainder are in a variety of forms, varying from some very large scale sketches showing the immediate area of the gauge only, to small scale maps giving a rough indication of the gauge location to photocopies of charts with the location of the tide gauge marked on by hand.
Work is currently underway to scan these maps, and store the information digitally. We are currently investigating the best format to store them in, prior to tidying the maps, and ensuring each is marked with GLOSS Station Number, a clear indication of the tide gauge and benchmark locations. Once this has been done, it is intended to produce a CD-ROM including all of the maps. We wish to ensure that we would not be in breach of copyright conditions if we use the site location maps which have been photocopied from published charts. We will be contacting suppliers shortly to check this. The US National Oceanographic Data Center has kindly offered to produce CD-ROMs, if required. At this stage, we do not know how many GLOSS Contacts have facilities for using CD-ROMs. However, anyone wanting the location maps for their region could be supplied with them on floppy disks. In addition to the site location plots, it is intended that the CD-ROM should include the latest version of the Handbook (Version 2.1) and the PSMSL data set.
For more information contact:
Lesley Rickards ljr@pol.ac.uk