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Weather buoys are instruments which collect weather and ocean data within the world's oceans, as well as aid during emergency response to chemical spills, trial, and engineering design. Moored have been in use since 1951, while drifting buoys have been used since 1979. Moored buoys are connected with the ocean bottom using either , nylon, or buoyant polypropylene. With the decline of the weather ship, they have taken a more primary role in measuring conditions over the open seas since the 1970s. During the 1980s and 1990s, a network of buoys in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean helped study the El Niño-Southern Oscillation. Moored weather buoys range from in diameter, while drifting buoys are smaller, with diameters of . Drifting buoys are the dominant form of weather buoy in sheer number, with 1250 located worldwide. Wind data from buoys has smaller error than that from ships. There are differences in the values of sea surface temperature measurements between the two platforms as well, relating to the depth of the measurement and whether or not the water is heated by the ship which measures the quantity.
During World War II The German Navy deployed weather buoys ( Wetterfunkgerät See — WFS) at fifteen fixed positions in the North Atlantic and Barents Sea. They were launched from into a maximum depth of ocean of 1000 (1,800 metres), limited by the length of the anchor cable. Overall height of the body was 10.5 metres (of which most was submerged), surmounted by a mast and extendible aerial of 9 metres. Data (air and water temperature, atmospheric pressure and relative humidity) were encoded and transmitted four times a day. When the batteries (high voltage dry-cells for the Vacuum tube, and nickel-iron for other power and to raise and lower the aerial mast) were exhausted, after about eight to ten weeks, the unit self-destructed. (2025). 9780870817687, Arctic Institute of North America. ISBN 9780870817687
The Navy Oceanographic Meteorological Automatic Device (NOMAD) buoy's hull was originally designed in the 1940s for the United States Navy’s offshore data collection program. The United States Navy tested marine automatic weather stations for hurricane conditions between 1956 and 1958, though radio transmission range and battery life was limited. Between 1951 and 1970, a total of 21 NOMAD buoys were built and deployed at sea. (1995). 9780933957145 ISBN 9780933957145 Since the 1970s, weather buoy use has superseded the role of weather ships, as they are cheaper to operate and maintain. The earliest reported use of drifting buoys was to study the behavior of ocean currents within the Sargasso Sea in 1972 and 1973. Drifting buoys have been used increasingly since 1979, and as of 2005, 1250 drifting buoys roamed the Earth's oceans.
Between 1985 and 1994, an extensive array of moored and drifting buoys was deployed across the equatorial Pacific Ocean to monitor and help predict the El Niño phenomenon. Hurricane Katrina capsized a buoy for the first time in the history of the National Data Buoy Center (NDBC) on August 28, 2005. On June 13, 2006, drifting buoy 26028 ended its long-term data collection of sea surface temperature after transmitting for 10 years, 4 months, and 16 days, which is the longest known data collection time for any drifting buoy. The first weather buoy in the Southern Ocean was deployed by the Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS) on March 17, 2010.
Discus buoys are round and moored in deep ocean locations, with a diameter of . The aluminum buoy is a very rugged meteorological ocean platform that has long term survivability. The expected service life of the platform is in excess of 20 years and properly maintained, these buoys have not been retired due to corrosion. The NOMAD is a unique moored aluminum environmental monitoring buoy designed for deployments in extreme conditions near the coast and across the Great Lakes. NOMADs moored off the Atlantic Canadian coast commonly experience winter storms with maximum wave heights approaching into the Gulf of Maine.
Drifting buoys are smaller than their moored counterparts, measuring in diameter. They are made of plastic or fiberglass, and tend to be either bi-colored, with white on one half and another color on the other half of the float, or solidly black or blue. It measures a smaller subset of meteorological variables when compared to its moored counterpart, with a barometer measuring pressure in a tube on its top. They have a thermistor (metallic thermometer) on its base, and an underwater drogue, or sea anchor, located below the ocean surface connected with the buoy by a long, thin tether.
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