The Rolling Deck to Repository (R2R) program provides fleet-wide management of underway data to ensure the preservation of, and access to, our national oceanographic research assets.
With their global capability and diverse array of sensors, research vessels are essential mobile observing platforms for ocean science. Data collected on every expedition are of high value, given the high cost and increasingly limited resources for ocean exploration.
R2R catalogs and submits the underway environmental sensor data routinely acquired on research expeditions to long-term public archives, including the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI). Data from each cruise are submitted directly to R2R by the vessel operator, rather than by the science party.
R2R provides essential documentation and standard products for each expedition, as well as tools to document shipboard data acquisition activities while underway. Post-cruise quality assessment of selected underway data types is provided, designed to evaluate the completeness of data and data documentation and to provide measures of instrument operation. Assessment of underway meteorological data is implemented in near-real-time in partnership with the SAMOS program at FSU.