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Fisheries science — NOAA NMFS science centers

Find datasets from the five regional NMFS Fisheries Science Centers — bottom trawl surveys, hydrographic profiles, ecosystem monitoring.

What this teaches

  • The five NMFS center collections: AFSC, NEFSC, NWFSC, PIFSC, SEFSC
  • Cross-source synthesis (e.g., NEFSC bottom temperature + Argo + satellite SST)
  • Reading multi-decade modeled bottom-temperature products

Sources used: NEFSC, AFSC, NWFSC, PIFSC, SEFSC

Prompt

Find bottom temperature observations on the Northeast U.S. continental
shelf — both observed (from fishing-industry sensors) and modeled.

Transcript

1. Search across NMFS centers

search_datasets(
  collections = "AFSC,NEFSC,NWFSC,PIFSC,SEFSC",
  q = "bottom temperature",
  limit = 5
)

Real hits:

ID Center What it is
ondeckdata_erddap_4319_ff7a_72eb NEFSC FIShBOT — Fishing Industry Shared Bottom Oceanographic Timeseries: gridded daily bottom temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, contributed by fishing-industry sensors via CFRF + GOMLF cooperation, 2000–present
duPontavice_bottom_temp NEFSC Bias-corrected ROMS-NWA + GLORYS12v1 modeled bottom temperature, 1/12° daily, 1959–2020 — the long-term reference product (du Pontavice et al. 2023)

ERDDAP host for both: https://comet.nefsc.noaa.gov/erddap. Full QC variables: each FIShBOT cell carries min/max/std/count alongside the daily mean.

2. Check coverage across all five NMFS centers

aggregate(
  aggregations = "total_count,collection_frequency",
  collections = "AFSC,NEFSC,NWFSC,PIFSC,SEFSC"
)

Important finding: Only 10 items total across the five NMFS center collections, and all 10 are in NEFSC. The AFSC, NWFSC, PIFSC, and SEFSC collections are registered but currently have zero indexed items in the AQUAVIEW catalog. This is a coverage gap to flag.

Result the agent gave

"For Northeast Shelf bottom temperature, two complementary products cover different needs:

1. FIShBOT (NEFSC) — the operational, observed gridded bottom temperature from the cooperative fishing-industry sensor network. Daily, 2000-present. Use this for recent operational ecosystem monitoring. ERDDAP: https://comet.nefsc.noaa.gov/erddap/tabledap/ondeckdata_erddap_4319_ff7a_72eb

2. du Pontavice modeled bottom temperature — 1/12° daily product from ROMS-NWA bias-corrected with GLORYS12v1, spanning 1959–2020. Use this for long-term context, climate decomposition, and pre-FIShBOT historical analysis.

Coverage caveat: The other four NMFS Science Center collections (AFSC, NWFSC, PIFSC, SEFSC) are listed in list_collections but currently have zero items indexed by AQUAVIEW. For Alaska bottom-trawl groundfish, Pacific Hake, Hawaii bottomfish, or SE Atlantic / Gulf of Mexico fisheries data, you'll need to query the source ERDDAPs directly (e.g., AFSC's data portal at https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/alaska/science-data) or wait for those collections to be populated.

Each NMFS center publishes parallel products for its region — the AFSC equivalent in the Bering Sea is the goa_bts and ebs_bts bottom-trawl-survey series."

Variations

  • Specific species: free-text the species name (q = "Atlantic cod") within the relevant center.
  • NWFSC Pacific Hake: classic example for the Northwest Center.
  • PIFSC Hawaii bottomfish: tropical / Hawaiian island stocks.
  • Modeling vs. observation: the FIShBOT/du Pontavice pair is a great template for "compare modeled with observed" prompts.