Overview of Ocean Based Buoys and Drifters: Present Applications and Future Needs

A short overview of the special buoy technology session held at the AAS 16th Interactive Information and Processing systems symposium in January 2000 is presented.

The overview will examine the philosophy of the timliness and importance of this session as well as its stucture. Both present and future technologies related to buoys, buoy arrays, and drifters used by several organizations(both federal, corporate, and academic) for meteorological and oceanographic applications will be addressed. The overview will address the scientific and technical issues related to the underlying engineering and information technology, and will address emerging technology trends which provide a vision for the future. These include a survey of various technologies used for several types of moored and drifting buoys, networks of buoys and climate programs using these buoys. The session will also include an overview of various information technologies underlying data acquisition, processing, visualization, and distribution, as well as the generation and distribution of data products. An overview of future trends will include discussions of the impact that advances in engineering, information technology, and vastly faster Internet speeds may have on sensors,buoys, data visualization and data access.