distribution and average number of daily ships' 

 weather observations during a five-day period. 



Wolff also estimates that for a given day there 

 are seven ships at sea for each ship's observation 

 received. Clearly, more data could be received by 

 increasing the number of ships in the WMO 

 cooperative program. The ship-of-opportunity 

 program, through which the bulk of ocean weather 

 and sea-surface temperature data is now obtained, 

 can be expanded at low cost. 



ESSA reports that, of the merchant vessel 

 reports received directly in the United States, 

 about a third are made directly to U.S. coastal 

 radio stations and processed by commercial 

 channels at an average cost of about three dollars 

 per report; the remaining two-thirds are initially 

 received at Government-operated communications 

 facihties, including the Coast Guard's, and retrans- 

 mitted at no additional cost to the Government. It 

 is estimated that additional sets of on-board 

 observing equipment could be purchased at about 

 $800 per set. There are some additional ad- 



ministrative expenses, such as those incurred in 

 providing checks of instruments by Port Meteoro- 

 logical Officers. The U.S.-owned ships that partici- 

 pate in this program are not reimbursed for taking 

 the observations, although some foreign govern- 

 ments do reimburse their ships. 



Many of these observations are first reported 

 by radio to overseas communications centers, and 

 then retransmitted to the United States via inter- 

 national meteorological communications channels. 

 Additional reports are submitted by mail, pri- 

 marily to enhance the long-term climatological 

 data bank as opposed to real-time data processing. 

 The elaborate administrative mechanisms for the 

 conduct of this program are well estabUshed. (See 

 Chapter 8 for a discussion of the WMO role in this 

 program.) The reports are presently limited to 

 standard meteorological observations, surface ocean 

 temperature, and an estimate of sea state. 



Vast areas of the world oceans are not included 

 in the coverage of this program, primarily areas 

 not covered by merchant shipping. Figure 12 



Figure 11. Schematic representation of use of weather data collected by merchant ships of 

 opportunity. Insert (upper right) shows a portion of standard instructions for coding these 

 data by merchant vessels. Lower right photograph shows a member of ship's company tak- 

 ing wet and dry bulk temperatures, part of the data encoded in the sample teletype message. 

 Map on lower left shows a portion of a surface weather map on which this and other 

 merchant ship weather reports are plotted. 



11-31 



