Chapter VI 



NEW SYSTEMS FOR OCEAN OBSERVATION 



The year 1972 was notable as a period in which new generations of 

 sensors and platforms began arriving in the form of operational 

 systems and engineering prototypes. Of particular significance was 

 the appearance of NOAA-2, an advanced satellite in the operational 

 polar-orbiting series that carries greatly improved visible and 

 infrared sensors, and that supports a greatly extended family of 

 "wet" data products, and of engineering prototypes of several 

 configurations of ocean data buoys. At the same time, remote sensing 

 of oceanic parameters made significant advances as scientists 

 improved their ability to see the marine environment through the 

 "colored glass" of infrared, microwave, visible, and other regions of 

 the electromagnetic energy spectrum. 



Data Buoys 



On the first day of February 1973, a 100-ton experimental data- 

 reporting buoy marked up the third anniversary of its anchoring in 

 the Atlantic Ocean, where it has been keeping tabs on ocean- 

 spawned storms which could endanger the mid-Atlantic states and 

 New England. In doing so, it established a record for longevity in the 

 deep sea for a buoy of such size. The device is the first of a series of 

 giant experimental environmental data reporting buoys being 

 developed and tested by NOAA. Similar experimental buoys are 

 reporting data from the Gulf of Mexico and the Gulf of Alaska, where 

 they were anchored last year by the Coast Guard for NOAA's Data 

 Buoy Office. The Office is located at the Mississippi Test Facility of 

 the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) at Bay 

 St. Louis, Mississippi. 



The Atlantic buoy is anchored on the western boundary of the Gulf 

 Stream approximately 125 nautical miles southeast of Norfolk, 

 Virginia, in 9900 feet of water. The buoy was deployed February 1, 

 1970, and since that time has been overhauled, refurbished, and 



Satellite observations may be used to monitor sources of water pollution. This 

 image, made by a multi-spectral scanner on the Earth Resources Technology 

 Satellite, shows S-shaped pattern resulting from the dumping of sewage 

 sludge from tug-towed barges just outside New York Harbor. 



71 



