This paper be the proceeding of TYKKI meeting held in December 1998 Tokyo.
On-line Oceanographic Data System for Moored Buoys - TRITON Buoy Data Stream-
Yoshifumi KURODA, Yasutaka AMITANI and members of TRITON Project Team (Japan Marine Science and Technology Center)
Kazuhiko SONO(Marine Works Japan Ltd.)
Akira SHOJI (Mitsubishi Heavy Industries)
1. Introduction
Japan Marine Science and Technology Center (JAMSTEC) is developing a surface moored buoy network named TRITON (TRIangle Trans-Ocean Buoy Network) for observing oceanic and atmospheric variability in the Pacific Ocean and its adjacent seas in cooperation interested Japanese and foreign agencies and institutions. The principal scientific objective is to understand variations of ocean circulation and heat/salt transports with emphasis on ENSO, the Asian monsoon, and decadal scale variability that influences world wide climate change. In its first phase, the TRITON array will be established mainly in the western tropical pacific Ocean, and harmonized with TAO array which are presently maintained by Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory(PMEL), NOAA. The fundamental functions of TRITON are (1) basin scale ENSO monitoring, and (2) measurements of heat, freshwater, momentum fluxes for improving modeling capability.
To achieve the above purpose, capabilities of data collection and qualified data distribution were key components for the development of TRITON system. In this report, sensors specifications, data sampling, and data flow are described.
2. TRITON buoy sensors
TRITON buoy is equipped with oceanographic and meteorological sensors (Table 1, and Table 2). The sensors were selected to keep the data compatibility with TAO sensors and reliability of long term measurements. The configuietion of TRITON buoy and general arrangement on the TRITON surface float are shown in Figure 1 and Figure 2.
3. Data sampling on TRITON buoy
TRITON buoy data processing system is consisted of four units (physically four cylinders in the surface float) of data processor unit, ARGOS transmitter unit and two battery units (Figure 3). Surface meteorology data come into the data processor and stored internally. Underwater data are transmitted from each sensor to the data processor by electromagnetic inductive coupling data communication method through a electric loop of wire cable and sea water. The underwater data are stored in each sensor. Basically TRITON buoy sensors measure every 10-minute and record internally the data (Figure 4, Table 3). The internally recorded data be recovered after a year buoy deployment enable us to investigate short term variability of surface heat and momentum fluxes.
4. Buoy data flow
The data are averaged for 1 hour and transmitted to land from TRITON buoys via ARGOS satellite data collection system (Figure 5).
