Evaluation of the Accuracy of Research Vessels as in situ Sources of Surface Flux Observations from Recent PSD Cruises

For the last 10 years NOAA/ESRL has installed the PSD roving flux standard system onboard research vessels in support of Flux Reference buoy deployments and/or UNOLS/NOAA research field programs. Since 2002 we have evaluated 10 R/V's that contribute data to the SAMOS climate data archive. Data from 9 earlier cruises on NOOA R/V's are included in the statistics. Just for grins, five years of comparisons with TAO buoys are included. In this paper we will summarize the comparisons of PSD and R/V measurements from bulk meteorological variables and radiative fluxes. This analysis will provide a basis for establishing the accuracy of R/V air-sea fluxes.