Providing global access to marine data via the World Wide Web

The World Wide Web (WWW) has opened many new opportunities for the exchange of information. This paper presents development work undertaken at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research to enable the distribution of scientific information over the WWW. One of the first projects was to provide an electronic version of the printed 'Hydrographic Atlas of the Southern Ocean'. The 'Southern Ocean' database is presented, the data from which was used for generation of the atlas graphics. This is followed by a discussion of some of the issues related to the creation on the electronic form of the atlas. One major database directly accessible on-line is the 'Ocean-Circulation Database', which comprises measured data from research vessel expeditions from 1985 on. The database itself is introduced, after which a description of the two methods of database query via a Web browser is given. If known, the name of a cruise can be input, or alternatively, one can click in the geographical area of interest on a 'clickable image' map of the world. Each click zooms the user in to the area of interest until the separate measurement points can be resolved. The user can then directly interrogate the database by clicking on the points.