This Summary was prepared in cooperation with the Global Temperature-Salinity Profile Program (GTSPP). The observation programs shown mainly represent open ocean data. XBT, Drifter, and ARGO data are distributed widely across all oceans, while TAO (tropical Pacific), Pirata (tropical Atlantic) and Triton (W.Pacific and E. Indian) are regional. In the time domain, TAO and Pirata data are reported once or twice per/day and Triton 15 times per/day. Data delivered include temperature and salinity with depth and meteorological parameters The full suite of the observations can at be seen at http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/tao/data_deliv/deliv.html

ARGO reports roughly once every 10 days to a depth greater than a km. XBT samples vary from 50 to 150km along track. 50km is the High Density program requirement. Specific details of National contributions to these programs can be seen at http://gosic.org/goos/GOOS-observational-programs.htm

The increasing use of the Iridium constellation of 66 communications satellites by the oceanographic community has the potential to greatly increase the real time data delivery rate from a number of systems. This is already manifested in, for example, the tropical arrays and drifting buoy programs.