Ocean circulation serve as the primary channels for transporting material and energy flows throughout the entire ocean system, which plays a crucial role in shaping Earth’s climate, weather patterns, and marine ecosystems. The ocean movements have far-reaching impacts on both the environment and human life. An effective method for semantically modeling the ocean circulation is urgently required to be established. To achieve a unified description of ocean circulation at the semantic level, this paper introduces the theory and methodology of ocean ontology, which is developed through an analysis of domain knowledge in ocean circulation. We focus on analyzing the concepts, temporal relationships, and spatial relationships of ocean circulation. By defining classes, properties, relationships, instances, and constraint conditions within the logical structure of an ontology, it is feasible to formalize the expression of conceptual elements and their relationships. Additionally, semantic inference rules are established to finalize the construction of the ocean circulation ontology. The effectiveness of ontology construction has been verified through practical examples. Furthermore, a specialized knowledge base framework has been developed upon the ontology description of ocean circulation. Some examples of knowledge base queries have been articulated and verified. The results demonstrate that this ontology can effectively represent the relevant knowledge in the domain of ocean circulation and provide a meaningful strategy for investigating semantic integration and knowledge sharing in this field.
Due to the absence of a comprehensive knowledge system for modeling ocean circulation, there is ambiguity and diversity in the semantic expression of ocean circulation. This makes it difficult to organize and share relevant spatiotemporal data effectively. This paper addresses the issue of ocean circulation by introducing ontological theory and methodology based on a comprehensive analysis of domain knowledge. Through a comprehensive analysis of the conceptual and relational characteristics of different elements, we define classes, properties, spatiotemporal relationships, and inference conditions with which to formally express concepts and relationships in ocean circulation, and finally complete the construction of ocean circulation ontology. The formal expression of the Equatorial Counter Current is presented as an example with which to validate the effectiveness of ontological construction. Additionally, an ontology-based knowledge base of ocean circulation is proposed. The construction framework is described, and several examples of knowledge base queries are also illustrated. The results demonstrate that this ontology can effectively represent the relevant knowledge within ocean circulation and provide a meaningful reference for investigating knowledge sharing and semantic integration within this field.
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