About Unique Data Tag Scheme

The Global Temperature and Salinity Profile Programme (GTSPP) has developed and tested a procedure to generate unique data tags for original ocean profile data by using the cyclic redundancy check (CRC) algorithm and successfully incorporated the CRC algorithm into its daily data processing stream.

The analyses of the CRC algorithm have been done by the US National Oceanographic Data Center, who hosts the long-term archive centre of the GTSPP. Up to mid-April 2012, the results of the analyses illustrated that 72,141 (94.5%) of 76,355 stations received from real-time data assembly centres matched with the delayed mode data stored in the GTSPP long-term archive. The CRC was able to correctly resolve 116 possible exact and/or near duplicates that could not be matched by conventional means.

The GTSPP has demonstrated the effectiveness of using CRC calculation as a unique tag for upper ocean temperature data. And the evidence here demonstrates the usefulness of that unique data tag. This Guide describes how the CRC algorithm can be used to generate unique data tags for ocean profile data.

A report on "the Use of the Cyclic Redundancy Check Algorithm to Generate Unique Data Tags for Ocean Profile Data" is available here.