Five Years Experience with a Shipboard Oceanographic Data 

 Processing System: Hindsight and Foresight * 



C. O. Bowin 

 Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution 

 Woods Hole, Massachusetts 



INTRODUCTION 



Several years ago the Geophysics Department of the Woods Hole 

 Oceanographic Institution recognized the need to accomplish at sea 

 as much data analysis and interpretation as possible concurrent 

 with the investigations. In recent years, oceanographic instrumen- 

 tation developments have made it practical to collect large amounts 

 of data during a single cruise, and the reduction of these data 

 involves the processing of similar amounts of navigational informa- 

 tion. The use of digital computers is a natural solution to the 

 problem of keeping pace with an accelerating data collection 

 capability. Data which has been collected must usually undergo a 

 certain amount of processing or reduction to be meaningful. A 

 researcher generally cannot evaluate data concurrent with its 

 acquisition; this task is usually performed ashore, either manually 

 or with the aid of a computer. Thus, scientifically interesting or 

 significant regions may be discovered only after the data has been 

 reduced ashore, often necessitating a return trip at great expense. 

 Computer processing at sea eliminates this delay and expense, and 

 allows scientists to monitor, assimilate, and evaluate the data at 

 sea. Some data may prove worthless upon reduction at the shore 



* Contribution No. 1937 from the Woods Hole Oceanographic 

 Institution. 



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