## Data Management

Data management is another overarching area of concern to U.S. GLOBEC. In particular:

1. how will we facilitate regional intercomparisons of research results to provide a global picture?

2. how will we analyze and reduce data to best incorporate them into models and measurement (monitoring) systems?

U.S. GLOBEC and other international programs have recognized the importance of regional intercomparison. For example, the ICES/GLOBEC International Cod and Climate Change working group has identified coordinated retrospective data analysis, including the establishment of a centralized database, as a unifying theme for their future program in the North Atlantic (GLOBEC International Report No. 4, 1993). Such considerations may have important implications for U.S. GLOBEC's activities in the North Atlantic. Building on the work of U.S. JGOFS, U.S. GLOBEC has adopted a community accessible object-oriented database system as a repository for the data. U.S. GLOBEC's Data Policy is specified in U.S. GLOBEC Report No. 10 (1994).