Quality-Controlled Underway Oceanographic and Meteorological Data from the Center for Ocean-Atmospheric Predictions Center (COAPS) - Shipboard Automated Meteorological and Oceanographic System (SAMOS)

The Florida State University has been operating a data assembly center (DAC) to collect, quality evaluate, and distribute Shipboard Automated Meteorological and Oceanographic System (SAMOS) observations since 2005. SAMOS are typically a computerized data logging system that records underway meteorological and near-surface oceanographic observations collected on research vessels. The SAMOS initiative does not provide specific instrumentation for vessels, but instead takes advantage of science quality instrumentation already deployed on research vessels and select merchant ships. The SAMOS initiative provides vessel operators with desired sampling protocols and metadata requirements that will ensure the DAC receives a consistent series of observations from each vessel. The DAC and its partners in U. S. National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the University National Oceanographic Laboratory System, the U. S. Coast Guard, and the U. S. Antarctic Program have implemented a series of daily data transmissions from ship-to-shore using an email protocol. A set of observations recorded at one-minute intervals for the previous day arrive at the DAC soon after 0000 UTC and undergo automated quality evaluation. A trained data analyst reviews data and responds directly to vessels at sea when problems are identified. A secondary level of visual quality control is completed after all data from a single ship and day are merged into a common daily file (allowing for delayed data receipts). All quality-evaluated data are freely available to the user community (via http://samos.coaps.fsu.edu) and are distributed to national archive centers. This project is supported by the NOAA Climate Observation Division.