Maritime data standardization in the Archimede Project

The concept of data standardization is explored with respect to the development of a highly heterogeneous meteo-marine archive, named Archimede. Meteo-oceanographic data collected from different instrumental platforms and spanning over several decades being obtained by many subjects are found in the archive. Data standardization is introduced as Standardization = Metadata + Documentation + data Quality Control. The terms of the conceptual scheme are explained in different contexts and their relative importance is stressed. The operational use of the scheme is then dealt with to show how it can be exploited to allow the best use of the archive by scientists and qualified operators in the marine field.