NATIONAL OCEANOGRAPHIC PROGRAM—1965 147 
We are making some inroads on the problem of quality control of oceano- 
graphic station data. We have machine plotted all the temperatiure-salinity 
relationships (based on 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 a first step in the generation 
of mathematical models for the computer which will eliminate 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 IJ phases of the international cooperative investigations of the 
tropical Atlantic (ICITA) in 1963, the NODC received, on a daily basis, mete- 
orological and oceanographic messages from ships participating in the surveys. 
During these surveys, we accomplished what we believe to be a first in oceanog- 
raphy—.e., the radio receipt of a complete oceanographic station within a matter 
of hours after the station had been occupied. ‘These were then continually re- 
ceived at the rate of one per day. (Receipt of data at the present time may 
vary from 1 month to several years after the data are taken.) The basic reduced 
data were fed to a computer and the computations for density, dynamic depth, 
specific volume anomaly, and sound velocity were made as were interpolations 
of these values for internationally accepted standard depths. This in itself dem- 
onstrated that an oceanographic program for almost instantaneous receipt of 
data was feasible. As the surveys progressed, the NODC developed an evaluation 
Message which was communicated back to the ship at sea. During the Equalant 
II, both an American vessel and an Argentine vessel daily transmitted ocean- 
ographic data to the NODC. The messages returned to these ships consisted 
of an evaluation of the observed data against the historical data and served as a 
means of intership comparison of data. It is interesting to note that the observed 
data received from both ships showed a bias of very small magnitude in the 
same direction. ‘The implication of this was that both ships were collecting high 
quality data. 
The finale of this experiment in quality control and communications occurred 
on September 19, 1963, during a combined operation of the Washington Labora- 
tory of the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries, NASA, and the NODC. On that 
day, with time available on the Syncom II satellite communication system, the 
BCF ship, Geronimo, radioed station data to the Kingsport (the Syncom sur- 
face station) which, in turn, communicated the data to Washington via Syncom 
II. The data were computed and evaluated by the NODC and salinities were 
found to deviate significantly from what would be the expected norm for the 
area. In other words, either a hitherto undiscovered oceanographic phenome- 
non was occurring in the area or something was wrong with the chemical analy- 
sis. Shortly after the Geronimo received the evaluation message (which was 
returned in about an hour), the oceanographers aboard that ship found that their 
salinometer was malfunctioning. 
With your permission, I would at this time like to introduce for the record 
copies of the messages and some of the press reports of this experiment. In 
December 1963, Dr. Spilhaus presented it in his “Our New Age” syndicated strip 
which appeared in the Washington Post and other newspapers. 
Inasmuch as it costs so much to occupy a single oceanographic station, any 
program which can give a scientist an instantaneous evaluation and quality 
control of the data he has just taken pays for itself many times over. Once 
the scientist has left the station, he can never be really sure whether the data 
he has obtained are worthless or may reveal some new secret of the sea unless 
he goes back to the same spot and repeats his observations—and this at great 
extra cost. 
The NODC is constantly striving to insure the quality of the data both at the 
collection source and at the shoreside processing facility. 
NODC PLANS FOR THE FUTURE 
One of the major objectives of the NODC is the adoption by the oceanographic 
community at large of standardized coding forms; for this reason, in designing 
coding forms for use by NODC in data processing, the cooperation of as wide a 
spectrum as possible of the oceanographic community has been enlisted. NODC 
will continue to advance this objective; the use of standardized forms will 
facilitate data processing and thus enhance the early usefulness. of the data to 
Scientists. 
