The SAMOS initiative encourages comparison studies between in-situ instruments. Surface flux reference stations and moored buoys are key components of a sustained ocean observing system. Side-by-side comparisons between research vessels (R/Vs) contributing data to SAMOS and the array of instruments deployed as part of these systems are necessary to maintain the data quality at these reference sites. In addition, data collected by for SAMOS during the R/V's approach to and departure from these stations and buoys is useful as a measure of the spatial variability, even if the vessel's stay at the site is temporally limited. As a part of the initiative SAMOS is collaborating with NOAA's Physical Science Division (PSD) and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) Upper Ocean Processes Group (UOP) who have developed two unique and high quality meteorological measurement platforms.

Both the NOAA and WHOI instrumentation platforms were developed and are result of the findings of the Working Group on Air-Sea Fluxes (WGASF) which was jointly sponsored by the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) and the Scientific Committee on Ocean Research (SCOR). This June 2000 report basically stated that comparison of observations from several research ships during the Tropical Ocean Global Atmosphere - Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere Response Experiment (TOGA-COARE 1993) revealed that raw measurements fell short of the of ±10 Wm-2 accuracy goals for the measurement of net heat exchange across the ocean-atmosphere interface over short to medium time scales.