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The Time-Series Toolkit
An online plankton time-series analysis and visualization toolkit.

Toolkit Overview

About COPEPODITE:

The COPEPOD Interactive Time-series Explorer (COPEPODITE) is a collection of time-series analysis and visualization plots developed by COPEPOD in support of various SCOR and ICES plankton time-series working groups ( WG125, WGZE, WGPME, WG137 ).   While some of these graphics have been used by WGZE and WG125 for over ten years, until now it was only possible for these graphics to be created "in-house" at COPEPOD.   (This means that an investigator had to send us their data and then wait for us to process it and create the graphics and results for them.)

This toolkit allows outside users to load their own data and quickly get a variety plots and results from the wide selection of tool modules developed in cooperation with these plankton working groups.


STEP 1:   Preparing your data for COPEPODITE:

The most important step in the COPEPODITE process is putting your data into a COPEPODITE-readable format.   This is not necessarily a hard process, as COPEPODITE has a fairly flexible (yet simple) spreadsheet-based format, developed to efficiently handle the hundreds of data files used in the various SCOR and ICES plankton time-series work that COPEPOD supports.

Information on how to prepare your data for COPEPODITE is available in the Data Format Page.

You may also want to take a look at the Data and Output Examples page to see a ready-to-use, working data file and output example using real data from the Plymouth L4 plankton monitoring site.


STEP 2:   Selecting a Geographic Location:

The geographic location you provide for your site is used to create standard location and hydrographic properties maps for the region around your sampling site.   Currently, these maps show the average temperature, salinity, and chlorophyll concentrations in the region.   Future additions will include nutrients, wind, and ocean currents.

The geographic location is also used to automatically add corresponding long-term sea surface temperatures for that region (i.e., HadISST 1900-2017, Reynolds OIv2-SST 1982-2017), add relevant climate indices (i.e., NAO, AMO, PDO) to your site's analysis results.   These additions are used in the "Multi-variable plot", for example, in which you can see how your data compare to the 100 year SST and local climate indices in your region.


STEP 3:   Analysis and Plotting Options:

At the moment, the tool development is happening faster than we can write up detailed descriptions.   The plankton working group members understand them, having the advantage or talking and working directly with Todd on these data.   Now we just need to write up summaries so you can get into the loop.

You can find general information on the processing methods and graphics on COPEPOD's Standard Analysis and Visualization of Plankton Time Series page.   A brief description of the plots is also provided under each plotting module "check box" in the actual COPEPODITE processing interface.  



--> CLICK HERE <-- if you are ready to start the Toolkit

COPEPODITE Data Security:
  • To protect your analysis and graphics results, access to the results is controlled via a randomly-generated, 32-character security link which will be emailed to you by the toolkit system.   These results will also be deleted after seven days.

  • If you wish to share your results with others, you can forward the "security link" email to them.   Remember that the results will be deleted after seven days (i.e., the results will disappear and the link will stop working).   The results email also contains a link to a ZIP file which contains the full set of results and images and can be easily downloaded to your own computer.
COPEPODITE User Agreement:
    The Interactive Time-series Explorer contains analysis and visualizations developed collaboratively by COPEPOD and various ICES and SCOR plankton time series working groups.   The ITE is not a commercial package and is provided to you free and "as-is" with no claims or guarantees of perfection or scientific soundness.

    If you have questions about how to prepare your data, what analysis modules to use, and/or interpretation of the ITE results, please feel free to contact Todd.OBrien@noaa.gov.   Concerns, complaints, and praise are welcome.