Marine Observing Programme in Australia

Australia's Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS) has been extended with a TRIAXYS sensor. AXYS Technologies (Canada), together with its Australian representative Metocean Services International, has recently supplied the sensor to the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO). The sensor is installed on the Southern Ocean Flux Station Weather Buoy, designed by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI), located at -46.915; 142.217, south of Tasmania, in 4,323 metres of water. 

 

The weather buoy was recovered in June 2011, retrofitted and upgraded to include the TRIAXYS wave sensor, and redeployed in late November 2011. The TRIAXYS sensor gathers and sends directional wave data to IMOS via Iridium satellite telemetry. This wave data, along with other oceanographic and meteorological data, is available on the IMOS Ocean Portal website (http://imos.aodn.org.au/webportal), and is important in the development of a Southern Ocean climate record as well as for improving marine weather forecasting. 

 

IMOS was established in 2007 under the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS), with initial funding of AUD50M and co-investment of AUD44M from partners. It has successfully deployed a range of observing equipment in the oceans around Australia, and is making all of the data freely and openly available through the IMOS Ocean Portal for the benefit of Australian marine and climate science as a whole. IMOS is supported by the Australian Government through the NCRIS and the Super Science Initiative.