Arctic Buoy Program
RPS built and maintains six (6) real-time met-ocean buoys that are deployed in the Arctic Sea each year during the open water (ice free) season typically July to October. Four (4) buoys are deployed in the Chukchi Sea and two (2) buoys are deployed in the Beaufort Sea.
These buoys are fully equipped with a suite of meteorological and oceanographic sensors that report real-time data for: air temperature, water temperature, humidity, barometric pressure, solar radiation, wind speed, wind direction, wave height, wave period, wave direction, current velocity and direction, pitch, roll, heading, and GPS position. For the 2013 season, one of the Beaufort buoys had five in-situ CTD units attached to the mooring cable at discrete depths approximately 4 meters apart. Each buoy is equipped with an Iridium satellite modem that reports the data every 15 minutes to a secure server. In addition, bottom mounted acoustic Doppler current profilers (ADCPs) are deployed at two locations in the Beaufort Sea. The ADCPs are deployed for a 12-month period to measure both ice and ice-free conditions.
Once on the server, the data undergo QA checks and is then posted in near real-time to a password protected website hosted and maintained by RPS. RPS also archives the data on the server for access by team members for further review and analysis.
