  High-frequency sonar systems deployed on a wide array of ocean observing
platforms are creating a deluge of water column sonar data at an unprecedented
speed from all corners of the ocean. Efficient and integrative analysis of
these data, either across different sonar instruments or with other
oceanographic datasets, holds the key to understanding the response of marine
ecosystems to the rapidly changing climate. Here we present Echopype, an
open-source Python software library designed to address this need. By
standardizing water column sonar data from diverse instruments following a
community convention and utilizing the widely embraced netCDF data model to
encode sonar data as labeled, multi-dimensional arrays, Echopype facilitates
intuitive, user-friendly exploration and use of sonar data in an
instrument-agnostic manner. By leveraging existing open-source Python libraries
optimized for distributed computing, Echopype directly enables computational
interoperability and scalability in both local and cloud computing
environments. Echopype's modularized package structure further provides a
conceptually unified implementation framework for expanding its support for
additional instrument raw data formats and incorporating new data analysis
functionalities. We envision the continued development of Echopype as a
catalyst for making information derived from water column sonar data an
integrated component of regional and global ocean observation strategies.
