Mr. Sydney Levitus started working in the NOAA National Oceanographic Centre in 1990 where he formed the Ocean Climate laboratory, a research and ocean data management group. He later became Director of one of the World Centres for Oceanographic Data. In 1993 Levitus initiated the IOC Global Oceanographic Data Archeology and Rescue Project which he still leads. Under this project approximately 3.5 million profiles were recovered covering the period till 1991. He also leads the IOC World Ocean database project which focuses on the enhanced collection of modern oceanographic profile-plankton data and the production of regional oceanographic atlasews. This database is the largest collection of ocean profile data available internationally without restriction. He also contributed to the Fourth Assessment Report of 2007 and to earlier IPCC Assessments.