Real-Time Data

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R2R, in partnership with the Shipboard Automated Meteorological and Oceanographic System (SAMOS), has developed protocols for UNOLS operators to transmit underway MET and TSG data to the SAMOS Data Center at the Florida State University in near real-time, enabling rapid QA, QC, and feedback on data quality during the cruise. Community input from scientists, data archivists, and shipboard marine technicians was used to design the data and metadata transfer protocols used by the SAMOS initiative. The SAMOS MET and TSG data products are a subset of the full temporal, sensor-level data recorded during a cruise which are provided to R2R in the post-cruise data distribution. For interested vessels, information on how to contribute MET and TSG data to SAMOS is available.

QA for TSG/MET data from UNOLS vessels includes automated tests for file completeness, readability, and checks for expected variables in the files. All observations receive daily visual monitoring and undergo automated scientific QC, the latter which applies quality flags at the parametric level, yielding a single alphabetic quality flag for each data value. In keeping with other R2R post-cruise QA procedures, this QC process flags suspect values, rather than removing them from the data files. QC includes techniques to flag data when the values are out of a physically plausible range, vary significantly from a climatology, the vessel position is not over water, vessel speed is too large, or when physical expectations for atmospheric data are not realized. QC statistics are made available to technicians via a web service.

Finally, as part of the overall R2R data stewardship model, the SAMOS data center provides all quality evaluated underway MET/TSG data to National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) for archiving.

VESSELS

50 RESEARCH CRUISES

10,087

DATA SETS ARCHIVED

61,499

DOWNLOADABLE FILES

23,879,223

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