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addition, perishable wave data will be transmitted to the Fleet Numerical 

 Oceanography Center (and the collocated NOAA Ocean Applications Group) in 

 Monterey CA to generate operational oceanographic products for end users. 

 Ice index data will be transmitted to Suitland MD, where the Navy's Polar 

 Oceanography Center (and the collocated NAVY-NOAA Joint Ice Center) will 

 prepare ice analyses and forecasts. 



Declassification of Data : The U.S. Navy makes approximately 1 50 expendable 

 bathythermograph (XBT) observations per day for operational use. These 

 reports contain temperature profiles and the location (time/date) where the 

 observations were made by fleet units. The observations are important for 

 predicting sound propagation in the sea and, therefore, for sonar performance 

 predictions for submarine detection. 



The observations are also important for a number of civilian applications 

 including ocean and global climate change modelling. The U.S. Navy 

 declassifies most of these data after 30 days, thereby contributing 

 approximately 55,000 observations per year to the public domain data base. 

 These data are sent to NOAA's National Oceanographic Data Center for 

 archiving and unrestricted distribution. 



The Navy has developed a digital model for characterizing different 

 water masses and temperature profiles within the ocean. This model, known 

 as the Generalized Digital Environmental Model (GDEM), is currently restricted 

 from public distribution. However, since the model may have applications to 

 ocean climate studies, we are reviewing its selected release. The Navy also 

 maintains a Master Oceanographic Observation Data Set (MOODS) consisting 



