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Unusual Commute to Work

Researchers and technicians from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration boarded and refurbished the “Middle Atlantic” buoy of the National Data Buoy Center network during an April 2007 expedition. WHOI physical oceanographer Al Plueddemann and colleagues from the Upper Ocean Processes group shared time at sea with NOAA colleagues while doing their own work on the Northwest Tropical Atlantic Station for air-sea flux measurement. Sensors on the NDBC buoy measure marine meteorological variables and are particularly useful for weather forecasts and hurricane prediction. The buoys are too big to recover/redeploy without special equipment. (Al Plueddemann, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)