Ocean Data Buoy Observations

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Information on Stations:

Each buoy has a discus shape hull with a diameter of 10 meters. Sensors for air temperature, wet-bulb temperature, solar radiation and wind speed/direction are equipped on the platform atop the mast at 7.5 meters above the sea surface. Sensors for air pressure and wave height/period are installed within the hull, at levels close to the sea surface. A sensor for sea surface water temperature is equipped beneath the hull at 1 meter depth, and a couple of sensors are equipped on the mooring cable at 20 and 50 meters (or 50 and 100 meters) depth from the sea surface.

The observation is usually carried out every three hours. When wind speed exceeds 35 knots each buoy changes the function automatically to one-hourly observation.

Observation data from the buoys are stored on this CD-ROM in the files named "Bnnnnn._yy.txt", where nnnnn shows station number, yy shows year.

Element Name Start Pos. Field Type Description of Field
Buoy number 1 I5 WMO station index number
Year 7 I4
Month 12 I2
Day 15 I2
Hour 18 I2 Universal Time
Wind direction 21 I2 Wind direction in 36 directions.
Wind speed 24 I4 Wind speed in knots to tenths.
Air temperature 29 I3 Temperature in degrees centigrade to tenths
Wetbulb temp. 33 I3
Air pressure 37 I5 Air pressure in hPa to tenths
Water temp. 1 43 I3 Water temperature at 1 meter depth.
Wave height 47 I3 Wave height in meter to tenths.
The wave height presented the mean wave height until July 31st, 1990 and presented the significant wave height from Aug. 1st, 1990.
Wave period 51 I2 Wave period in seconds.
Water temp. 2 54 I3 Water Temperature (WT2) *
Water temp. 3 58 I3 Water Temperature (WT3) *
Solar radiation 61 I3 Solar radiation data have two types as follows: instantaneous value (0.1kW/square meter) and accumulated value (0.1MJ/square meter). *
Explanation of File Format
*: see "Information on Stations"