Brokering meteorological and oceanographic information in support of military operations using GIS technology

In order to provide timely meteorological and oceanographic (METOC) support to military operations, it is advantageous to provide geospatially enabled information that can be integrated seamlessly into the infrastructure of decision-making tools used by the warfighter. This requires a new technology that can incorporate and transform many types of data into a uniform package of useful georeferenced information. The use of a geographic information system (GIS) is being recognized as the solution of choice to satisfy this requirement. Over the past few years the Naval Oceanographic Office (NAVOCEANO) has led the way in the development of this cutting-edge technology. GIS methodology is particularly well suited for collecting, organizing, storing, analyzing, and distributing geological, oceanographic, meteorological, and even space data. As users at NAVOCEANO have come to recognize how GIS tools could vastly improve operations, certain capabilities for processing and distributing relevant METOC information have evolved. This paper describes certain applications of GIS technology that provide geospatial information to the customer, leading up to the use of ArcIMS, an Internet map server developed by the Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI). The overall goal at NAVOCEANO is to provide the warfighter with time-critical information of the environment relevant to the warfare area and pertinent to the mission. To this end, the ArcIMS, coupled with ArcSDE, the spatial data engine, provides an architecture that allows NAVOCEANO to broker between the vast and disparate resources of METOC data and the highly specific military mission requirements. Portrayed in the paper is the history of operational support that lays the ground work for GIS technology today at NAVOCEANO. Finally, described here is one of the latest functional prototypes of the ArcIMS setup at NAVOCEANO that provides a variety of METOC information layers tailored to certain requirements, initiated by a demonstration proposal for Fleet Battle Experiment - Juliet.