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Academic, government, and private organizations from around the globe have established High Frequency radar (hereinafter, HFR) networks at regional or national levels. Partnerships have been established to coordinate and collaborate on a single global HFR network (http://global-hfradar.org/). These partnerships were established in 2012 as part of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) to promote HFR technology and increase data sharing among operators and users. The main product of HFR networks are continuous maps of ocean surface currents within 200 km of the coast at high spatial (1-6 km) and temporal resolution (hourly or higher). Cutting-edge remote sensing technologies are becoming a standard component for ocean observing systems, contributing to the paradigm shift toward ocean monitoring. In 2017 the Global HFR Network was recognized by the Joint Technical WMO-IOC Commission for Oceanography and Marine Meteorology (JCOMM) as an observing network of the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS). In this paper we will discuss the development of the network as well as establishing goals for the future. The U.S. High Frequency Radar Network (HFRNet) has been in operation for over 13 years, with radar data being ingested from 31 organizations including measurements from Canada and Mexico. HFRNet currently holds a collection from over 150 radar installations totaling millions of records of surface ocean velocity measurements. During the past 10 years in Europe,

It is generally recognized that meeting society's emerging environmental science and management needs will require the marine data community to provide simpler, more effective and more interoperable access to its data. There is broad agreement, as well, that data standards are the bedrock upon which interoperability will be built. The path that would bring the marine data community to agree upon and utilize such standards, however, is often elusive.In this paper we examine the trio of standards 1) netCDF files; 2) the Climate and Forecast (CF) metadata convention; and 3) the OPeNDAP data access protocol. These standards taken together have brought our community a high level of interoperability for "gridded" data such as model outputs, satellite products and climatological analyses, and they are gaining rapid acceptance for ocean observations. We will provide an overview of the scope of the contribution that has been made.We then step back from the information technology considerations to examine the community or "social" process by which the successes were achieved. We contrast the path by which the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has advanced the Global Telecommunications System (GTS) -netCDF/CF/OPeNDAP exemplifying a "bottom up" standards process whereas GTS is "top down". Both of these standards are tales of success at achieving specific purposes, yet each is hampered by technical limitations. These limitations sometimes lead to controversy over whether alternative technological directions should be pursued.Finally we draw general conclusions regarding the factors that affect the success of a standards development effort -the likelihood that an IT standard will meet its design goals and will achieve communitywide acceptance. We believe that a higher level of thoughtful awareness by the scientists, program managers and technology experts of the vital role of standards and the merits of alternative standards processes can help us as a community to reach our interoperability goals faster.

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A national high-frequency radar network has been created over the past 20 years or so that provides hourly 2-D ocean surface current velocity fields in near real time from a few kilometers offshore out to approximately 200 km. This preoperational network is made up of more than 100 radars from 30 different institutions. The Integrated Ocean Observing System efforts have supported the standards-based ingest and delivery of these velocity fields to a number of applications such as coastal search and rescue, oil spill response, water quality monitoring, and safe and efficient marine navigation. Thus, regardless of the operating institution or location of the radar systems, emergency response managers, and other users, can rely on a common source and means of obtaining and using the data. Details of the history, the physics, and the application of high-frequency radar are discussed with successes of the integrated network highlighted.