CRUISE TRACKS
SeaKeepers Fleet Track Map of 2008 Transmitted Data
[Click on image to enlarge]
The image above reflects the tracks of the satellite data transmissions (or TDR's*) from SeaKeepers vessels in 2008. In many cases, overlapping tracks hide multiple transmission points. In 2008, SeaKeepers will take approximately nine million data samples (as of end of October 2008, we approximate having collected nearly 6.5 million samples); each data sample typically represents at least 10 different precise measurements, which are available to thousands of scientists worldwide analyzing and modeling our changing oceans.
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*About the Transmitted Data Records (TDR’s) and Sample Data Counts
With existing technology, most SeaKeepers data is transmitted via satellite every 3 hours. These 3-hour summaries, or Transmitted Data Records (TDR’s), are used by the World Meteorological Organization and its international affiliates (e.g. NOAA in US, Bureau of Meteorology in Australia, Meteorological Office in UK, etc.) to enhance marine weather reports and improved 5-day forecasts.
EACH TDR typically represents 180 actual one-minute data samples. These detailed high resolution data sets are manually recovered from ships during service calls. We extrapolate the number of one-minute data samples to be approximately 9 million by year-end 2008. SeaKeepers hopes to evolve to a system of broadband data transmission in 2009-10, which will enable daily transmission of all collected data.
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