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The development and use of weather buoys 1940–2005
Author(s) -
Kington John A.,
Selinger Franz
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
weather
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.467
H-Index - 40
eISSN - 1477-8696
pISSN - 0043-1656
DOI - 10.1256/wea.247.05
Subject(s) - citation , unit (ring theory) , library science , computer science , psychology , mathematics education
In October 2005 it was reported that the Met Office was predicting that the following winter, 2005–2006, was likely to be cold and dry (see Weather news, December 2005 issue, p. 334). This long-range forecast was prepared using data from observational systems that included a network of freefloating buoys in the North Atlantic equipped with sensors measuring sea temperature and salinity (Gould and Turton 2006). Reports collected from these automatic weather stations (AWS) since the spring of 2005 indicated that large temperature anomalies had developed in the North Atlantic that closely matched those that had occurred before severe winters such as that of 1962–1963 (Leake 2005). These items brought to mind an outstanding but mostly forgotten (or even unknown) advance made in meteorological observing technology during the Second World War, namely, the development of AWS on both land and sea by the German weather services at that time (Kington and Selinger 2006).