IMOS deploys the world’s first weather buoy in the remote Southern Ocean

For the first time a weather buoy has been deployed in the remote Southern Ocean, moored in water 4.6km deep, 580km southwest of Tasmania at 46.75S, 142E.

Loading the SOFS buoy onto the MNF Southern Surveyor

The IMOS Southern Ocean Flux Station (SOFS) was deployed from the Marine National Facility research vessel Southern Surveyor on the 17th of March, and has been relaying back to shore hourly observations of the wind, temperature, humidity, air pressure, sunlight and rain. The data provides insight into the current conditions “down south” as well as helping to build a record in this climatically important region of the world ocean.  The real time data plots are available on the IMOS Ocean Portal. The $1M SOFS buoy took 12 months to build in the USA by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and is operated by the Bureau of Meteorology as part of the Australian Bluewater Observing System Facility.

As well as aiding weather forecasting, the meteorological observations are used to compute the total heat, mass and momentum fluxes on time scales from diurnal up to annual. While the Southern Ocean plays a significant role in the global climate system, there is a paucity of sustained in situ air-sea flux observations in this harsh and remote region. The high quality observations are a valuable contribution to building the climate record and understanding climate variability.

To read the Bureau of Meteorology media release click here.

To download a movie of the Southern Ocean Flux Station deployment in the Southern Ocean, or to listen to a radio interview of Dr Eric Schulz discussing the buoy on ABC Southern Queensland Drive, right click on the link below and then from the menu select "Save Target as", then save to your computer.