Worldwide Buoy Locations

Description:

Buoys with the ability to collect data are scattered through out the world’s oceans in order to gain a better understanding of how the oceans work and how they are changing. The data is being used for monitoring chemical levels in the oceans, garnering accurate ocean temperatures and change in temperature, and many other endless uses. Each dot on this visualization represents a buoy, and each color indicates the use of the buoy. The buoy network is still expanding past what can be seen on this visualization.

The green colored dots are buoys in the Argo network. By the end of 2006, 3000 Argo buoys are scheduled to be located worldwide. These are deep-water buoys that record continuous data from over 6500ft below sea level up to the surface. The yellow and blue dots are maintained by NOAA. These include both traditional buoys, but also C-MAN (Coastal-Marine Automated Network) stations. Most of the buoys are located off of the shores of the United States and provide data for the NOAA Marine Environmental Buoy Database. The C-MAN stations are located on piers, offshore towers, lighthouses, and beaches. These buoys and stations record parameters such as wind speed and direction, wave height, pressure, air temperature, and sea surface temperature. The red dots are buoys in the Deep Ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis (DART) Project, which is an ongoing effort to maintain and improve the capability for the early detection and real-time reporting of tsunamis in the open ocean. Finally, the purple dots are buoys used in the Tropical Atmosphere Ocean, TAO/TRITON, project. This project is dedicated to El Nino and La Nina. Notice that the buoys are arranged in parallel lines in the ocean where this phenomenon tends to occur.

Notable Features:

Green = Argo Buoy network
Blue and Yellow = NOAA buoys and C-MAN stations
Red = DART buoys
Purple = TAO/TRITON buoys

Data Category

Major: Ocean
Minor: Buoy

Keywords:

Ocean, buoy, Argo, C-MAN, DART, TAO/TRITON

Data Set Name	buoy_locations
Data Set Source	National Oceanographic Data Center, National Data Buoy Center, Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory
Data Set Developer	Steve Albers, NOAA/GSD
Visualization Developer	Steve Albers, NOAA/GSD
Audio	No
Download	FTP