This script (contributed by Robert Branton) shows how to make a map showing the station locations of the Ocean Tracking Network (OTN).

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
"""
Created on Sat Feb 16 19:29:10 2013

@author: bob.branton@dal.ca

Purpose: draw simple map of Ocean Tracking Network (OTN) station locations
1) Create function to get station locations from genric node
2) Run function to get data from otn and post nodes
3) Draw empty basemap of the world
4) Overlay station locations on basemap

For more on OTN: http://members.oceantrack.org/data

"""

import numpy as np
import urllib2
import StringIO
import csv
from mpl_toolkits.basemap import Basemap
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

#define data variable
lats, lons = [],[]

# 1) Create function to get data from otn a network node
def getdata(node):
    response = urllib2.urlopen('http://global.oceantrack.org:8080/geoserver/wfs?request=getfeature&service=wfs&version=1.1.0&outputFormat=CSV&typename='+node+':stations')
    data = response.read()
    data = StringIO.StringIO(data)
    r = csv.DictReader(data, dialect=csv.Sniffer().sniff(data.read(10000)))
    data.seek(0)
    for row in r:
        lats.append(float(row['latitude']))
        lons.append(float(row['longitude']))

# 2) Run fuction to get date from each otn node, that is otn and post
getdata('otn')
getdata('post')

# 3) Draw gloabal basemap
# map = Basemap(projection='ortho', lat_0=50, lon_0=-100, resolution='l', area_thresh=1000.0)
map = Basemap(projection='robin', lat_0=0, lon_0=-100, resolution='l', area_thresh=1000.0)
map.drawcoastlines()
map.drawcountries()
map.fillcontinents(color='coral',lake_color='aqua')
map.drawmapboundary(fill_color='aqua')
map.drawmeridians(np.arange(0, 360, 30))
map.drawparallels(np.arange(-90, 90, 30))
plt.title("Ocean Tracking Network Stations")

# 4) Overlay station locations on basemap
x,y = map(lons, lats)
map.plot(x, y, 'wo',markersize=8)
plt.show()

# done