II. 6 DATA DELIVERY 



The details of data processing and delivery are complex. For purposes of 

 an overall requirement, satisfactory data processing and delivery is 

 considered to be among the most vital concerns that the ocean science 

 community have for a new satellite observing system. History of other 

 ocean-oriented satellite data systems has not been encouraging in this 

 respect. Timeliness of data processing is most important in that if data 

 processing time does not keep pace with the data flow, backlogs quickly 

 develop and it can become literally years before the data are made 

 available to the research community. In that case, the data are often not 

 widely used by scientists and a multi-million-dollar satellite is under- 

 utilized. Further, satellite pictures by themselves are not satisfactory 

 for quantative ocean study. The observations must be presented as quanta- 

 tive information products, specifically, navigated values of chlorophyll 

 and of the diffuse attenuation coefficient. To this end, the data avail- 

 able to the user must meet the following requirements: 



a. For near real-time positioning of ships during MAREX field 

 experiments, quick-look data must be available with 24 hours of 

 observation, or direct satellite read-out for user ground 

 stations must be available in selectable areas worldwide. 



b. For integration with cruise results, fully processed high- 

 resolution data must be available to the user within 30 days of 

 observation. This is "Level II" processing (which means cloud 

 removed, atmospherically corrected, chlorophyll values within a 

 pass, identified by latitude-longitude on computer-compatible 

 tape). False color images or contoured maps of these passes are 

 also desirable. 



c. The same information is needed for the low-resolution global 

 data. However, since the global data will be primarily used in 

 the study of larger scale, longer term variations, the observa- 

 tions should be integrated and composited before delivery. Level 

 II low-resolution values should be stored on a monthly 100 km 

 grid. After three months for processing, the mean values should 

 be published monthly as contours on ocean-scale maps. There is no 



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