NDBC Southern Hemisphere Drifting Buoys

NDBC Southern Hemisphere Drifting Buoys is historical digital data set DSI-1168, archived at the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC). This is meteorological and oceanographic data. The National Data Buoy Center (NDBC) was funded by the NOAA Office of Global Programs to deploy about 20 to 30 new drifting buoys into southern hemisphere waters each year between 1988 and 1998. All buoys were released south of 20S. Most were released south of 40S, 50S and 60S. Many circled the globe in the Southern Ocean. The drifting buoy data system consisted of three basic components. They were the buoy platforms with their sensors and electronics, the TIROS-N/ARGOS (satellite) Data Collection Platform Location System (DCPLS) and the data processing center. As a NOAA/TIROS-N polar orbiting satellite passed within line of site of a buoy, the DCPLS received telemetry from the buoy. This telemetry contained an identification number, the sensor data (atmospheric pressure, air and sea surface temperatures, subsurface temperatures), and information necessary for deriving buoy position. The nominal time interval between readouts was 101 minutes for each satellite at the Command and Data Acquisition (CDA) Station at Wallops Island, Virginia; Gilmore Creek, Alaska; and Lanion, France. The data received by the CDAs was relayed to NESDIS at Suitland, Maryland where the ARGOS data was separated from other components of the telemetry and relayed to the ARGOS Data Processing Center (CNES) in Toulouse, France. Processing was performed at CNES to compute platform position using differential Doppler techniques and to recover sensor data. Upon receipt of this information by ground processing systems, the data were processed and then transmitted on the Global Telecommunications System (GTS) for operational analysis and incorporated into the Tropical Oceans Global Atmospheric (TOGA) program research data sets. Data was sent monthly to the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) for archival as digital data set DSI-1168, and also to the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC). The parameters represented in these data are air and sea temperature, pressure, winds, waves, subsurface temperatures, sea state, salinity, and bottom depth.