The Tropical Atmosphere Ocean Array (TAO) Refresh - New … · 2014. 3. 6. · weather and climate, especially El Niño and La Niña - 55 TAO buoy sites and 4 Acoustic Doppler Current

94th AMS, 18th Conference on IOAS-AOLS, 05 February 2014

The Tropical Atmosphere Ocean Array (TAO) Refresh - New Capabilities and

Value Added

Richard H. Bouchard1, Landry J. Bernard III1,2, Raymond R. Beets3, Karen R. Grissom1, and

Kathleen O’Neil1

1NOAA/NWS/National Data Buoy Center (NDBC) 2University of Southern Mississippi (USM)

3Pacific Architects & Engineers (PAE)


Back Up Slides


Tropical Atmosphere Ocean (TAO)

To provide real-time atmospheric and ocean data for improved detection, understanding and prediction of weather and climate, especially El Niño and La Niña

- 55 TAO buoy sites and 4 Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler sites (NDBC) - 12 TRITON buoy sites and 1 ADCP site (JAMSTEC (Japan))


Circa 1994


TAO Timeline • 1982-83: Strongest El Nino of 20th Century went undetected until peak • 1985-1994: Tropical Ocean-Global Atmosphere (TOGA) program. 70

moorings at conclusion. • 1995: TAO succeeds TOGA; Part of the Climate Variability and Predictability

(CLIVAR) program, the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS), and the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS)

• 2002: NOAA Administrator endorses Recommendations of NOAA Program Review Team to transition; NOAA Line offices, OAR and NWS, prepare Transition Plan

• 2005-2007: Transition from NOAA Research to Operations at NDBC (Bouchard et al., 2007)

• 2007-2010: Development & Testing TAO Technology Refresh (Crout et al., 2011)

• October 5, 2010: TAO Refresh Commissioned for Operational Use • 2014: Complete Replacement of Remaining 24 ATLAS by TAO Refresh


TAO Technology Refresh

• Previous Developments: • 1984: NOAA Research

develops ATLAS (Autonomous Temperature Line Acquisition System) mooring.

• 1994: Next Generation ATLAS

• During the Transition Planning in 2003, a major concern was the impending obsolescence of the existing technology in the TAO array (Moersdorf, 2004).

• An increasing number of components were being discontinued

Iridium


Refreshed Instruments • New: Compass, Interface for Rain Gauge and

Radiation Sensors, and Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) Subsurface CTD Sensors

• The New Instrumentation is Cost-effective and Robust

• COTS are Widely Used, Understood, and Interchangeable across Programs.

• However, the Change in Communications Has the Biggest Impact on Users


Communications and Datalogger Improvements

• ATLAS depends on Limited Availability and Bandwidth of NOAA Polar Orbiting Satellite Communications and Post-release Quality Control

• TAO Refresh uses Iridium Satellite Communications and an NDBC–developed Datalogger that Provide: – 24x7 Temporal Coverage & Less Latency – High-Resolution Data Available in Real-Time:

• Data Preserved in Case of Instrument Loss, and • Detect Events in Real-Time, and Begin to Address Long-standing

Problem of Vandalism (e.g., McPhaden, 1995)

– Direct Delivery to NDBC for Pre-release Quality Control and Active Data Management


TAO Refresh Value-Added • ATLAS Provided a Daily Average and a Few

Hourly Reports; Full-resolution Awaited Recovery of Instruments

• Refresh Provides Users with Full Data Set in Real-time Allowing Users to: – Apply Specialized QC – Compile Averages and Statistics Tailored for their

Application – Know the Number of Degrees of Freedom in

Compilations


Co-located RT Data Availability 1 Oct – 31 Dec 2009

0%

25%

50%

75%

100%

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23

Hour of the Day (UTC)

ATLAS REFRESHNo ATLAS Data


05/22 05/2305/24 05/25 05/2605/27 05/2805/29 05/30 05/31

450

460

470

480

490

500

Plot of Station 0 95W (dm050a)

May.21,2013 06:10:00 to May.31,2013 18:00:00

0 95W (dm050a)- Water Pressure at 500m

Real-Time Event Detection and Corroboration CAYUDE – Venezuela Flag

Purse seine fishing vessel

At 0N 95W, real-time, high-resolution (Refresh) data AND imagery confirm vessel’s interference with data

A few days later at 2S 95W, imagery show vessel in the area, but coarse resolution (ATLAS) data cannot detect event

05/22 05/23 05/24 05/25 05/26 05/27 05/28 05/29 05/30 05/31

450

460

470

480

490

500

Plot of Station 2S 95W (qm016a)

May.21,2013 12:00:00 to May.31,2013 12:00:00

2S 95W (qm016a)- Average Water Pressure at 500m


Thinking Outside the Box

1775 Hourly Wind and Sea Surface

Temperature Reports from

Outside Data Grid Box

Released as WMO 51542

Research Did Not Release Measurements Outside of 2°x 10°Data Grid

https://comms02.ndbc.noaa.gov/refreshed/measurement.php?site=75&dep=1886&measurement=pos&syr=2009&smon=12&sday=10&shr=16&smin=23eyr=2010&emon=01&eday=10&ehr=16&emin=23�


TAO Refresh in Summary

• Addressed Impending Obsolescence of ATLAS • Expands User Applications with More Real-

Time Measurements Tailorable to Specific Applications

• Empowers NOAA with the Documentary Evidence of Vandalism

• Refresh Completed in 2014


• Bouchard et al., 2007, Operational transition of the data processing, quality control, and web services of the Tropical Atmosphere Ocean Array (TAO), Proc. 14th Symposium on Meteorological Observation and Instrumentation, American Meteorological Society

• Crout et al., 2011: Refreshing the Equatorial Pacific Tropical Atmosphere Ocean Array (TAO), IUGG XXV Melbourne, Australia

• McPhaden, M.J., 1995. The Tropical Atmosphere Ocean (TAO) Array is Completed, Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 76(5), pp. 739-741.

• Moersdorf, P., 2004: TAO Transition, Abstract of Presentation to NOAA Climate and Observing Program Annual System Review and Climate Observing System C il A l M ti A il 13 15 2004 24 25

References


• http:// tao.noaa.gov

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The Tropical Atmosphere Ocean Array (TAO) Refresh - New … · 2014. 3. 6. · weather and climate, especially El Niño and La Niña - 55 TAO buoy sites and 4 Acoustic Doppler Current

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