140 NATIONAL OCEANOGRAPHIC PROGRAM—1965 
data. The NODC has worked very closely with Mr. Dean Bumpus of 
the Woods Hole and Dr. John Norcross of the Virginia Institute of 
Marine Sciences. Also under development are schemes for handling 
nearshore oceanographic data, instrument-measured current data, and 
nonnutrient chemical data. 
It should be pointed out that all holding-recall systems are developed 
in concert with the oceanographic community. Extremely gratifying 
is the cooperation the NODC has received ‘from the oceanographic 
community which is reflected in their willingness to serve on the 
various ad hoc committees formed in conjunction with our develop- 
mental work. 
Quality control of oceanographic data is the third item I would like 
to touch on. 
Now that the NODC has had the experience of nearly 3 years of 
working with various types of oceanographic data in a multitudimous 
variety of formats, we can rationally approach the problem of develop- 
ing and implementing automated quality controls. I do not mean to 
imply that until this time there has been no application of quality 
control, but practically all of it has been applied subjectively. With 
our present backlogs of data and our present and future acquisition 
effort, we would be naive to believe that we could continue to apply 
subjective quality controls. To have applied automated quality con- 
trols at the outset of our operation would also have been naive since no 
end products had been defined and we had practically no guidelines 
for total systems. Now we feel we are ready to begin with an 
automated system. 
Shortly, we expect to have in operation a computer program which 
will check some items of a routine nature which at the present time 
are monitored by our oceanographers. This will then give additional 
time for these oceanographers to assess the scientific plausibility of the 
data. One of the first attempts at automated quality control that we 
will implement shortly is a program which will check the quality of 
work done by contractors who are digitizing the BT work for the 
NODC. This will not only insure that a major contractor is capable 
of performing quality work, but will also provide a quality check as the 
work progresses. 
We are making some inroads on the problem of quality control of 
oceanographic station data. We have machine plotted all the tem- 
perature-salinity relationships for the historical data for the Indian 
Ocean and are currently funding for a similar analysis for the Pacific 
Ocean. From these plots we are generating envelopes of acceptable 
limits which for the time being will be used in our subjective quality 
control program. ‘This is to serve as a first step in the generation of a 
mathematical computer for the subjective approach. 
Just about a year ago we were able to demonstrate very dramatically 
how quality control can pay off through rapid communication systems. 
During the Equalant I and II phases of the international cooperative 
investigations of the tropical Atlantic known as ICITA, in 1963, the 
NODC received, on a daily basis, meteorological and oceanographic 
messages from ships participating in the surveys. During these sur- 
veys, we accomplished what we believe to be a “first” in oceanography— 
that is, the radio receipt of a complete oceanographic station within a 
matter of hours after the station had been occupied. These were then 
