Updates to the Caro-COOPS Buoy Array System

Beginning in May 2006, the mechanical wind vane sensors on all of the CaroCOOPS & CORMP buoy systems have been replaced with ultrasonic wind sensors. These units have no moving parts and utilize an acoustic time-of-travel principle to determine wind speed and gusts. Integrated with very precise, flux-gate compasses to determine wind direction on a moving platform, it is expected that these modules will perform more accurately and be considerably more robust physically than their predecessors.

Additionally, Teledyne-RDI's NEMO Waves Processing Module has been installed on the Caro-COOPS CAP2 & CAP3 sites. These units pre-process the raw waves burst and current ensemble data to create a compact data packet suitable for transmission over the buoy's limited bandwidth sub-surface inductive telemetry link as well as the system's Iridium satellite channel. Also, the technical problems with Caro-COOPS CAP2 and FRP2 will be addressed during maintenance scheduled for the week of August 21, 2006.

Waves data is directly reported as wave height in meters, significant wave period in seconds, direction from which the waves are propagating in degrees and sea level. Current profile data is reported as easterly & northerly magnitudes at selected depths throughout the water column.