One goal of the SAMOS data center at FSU is to establish a partnership with data providers that is beneficial to those responsible for collecting observations on vessels. We seek to provide on-shore services that will improve the accuracy and overall quality of automated marine observations. At present, we provide the following services that should benefit vessel operators:

• Routine data quality evaluation - observations are received from participating vessels on a daily basis. All observations undergo automated quality control and are visually inspected by a trained marine meteorologist the day after they are received (excluding weekends - we are not a 24/7 operation)

• After quality evaluation, the on-shore data analyst will notify the vessel directly when problems or concerns are discovered in the data received. This two-way communication with the technicians on the vessel allows sensor problems to be fixed before large amounts of incorrect data are collected.

• Near real-time distribution of quality evaluated observations from your vessel. Preliminary observations are available within 10 minutes of receipt. Intermediate data (single daily file) are available for all ships and research quality products (extensive visual quality evaluation) are available for select ships (depending on funding source) ten days following receipt of preliminary data.

• Metadata tracking and inclusion into all distributed data files. The SAMOS DAC maintains an SQL database of metadata for each individual vessel. These metadata are served to the user community.

• A data quality subscription service. Operators can subscribe to receive daily reports on data submission status or monthly reports related to data quality.

• Decision support for vessels wishing to improve sensor suites and exposures. Scientists contributing to SAMOS are willing to communicate with individual vessel operators to provide recommendations on sensors to deploy and how best to site the sensors to collect the highest quality observations. Limited ship visits by SAMOS personnel are possible when a vessel is in port.

• On-board evaluation of your meteorological instrument system. NOAA/ESRL developed an air-sea flux reference standard instrument system that can be deployed along side your system for on-board and underway comparison during a research or transit cruise. A trained technician will make recommendations to improve your sensor system.