Drifting Buoys, RMRP 1994



Drifting Buoy Information:

Five satellite tracked drifting buoys were deployed on 29 April 1994 by the RV Argo Maine. Two were drogued at a 10 meter depth (22502 and 22503) and the remaining three had drogues at 40 meter depth. The drifting buoys transmitted via Service Argos and between 4 and 8 positions were received daily for most of the buoys. The table below lists the deployment positions along with the date and position of the last transmission.

Data Processing:

The positions calculated by Service Argos were edited using a default speed criterion of 6 knots, eliminating unrealistic positons. The cleaned time series were fit by a cubic spline and interpolated to hourly positions. The hourly positions were low-pass filtered to remove any tidal effects.

Data Display:

The smoothed position time series are shown for each buoy. The symbols on the plots are every seven days, starting from 02 May 1994 at 0000z. Labels indicating the date are placed every four weeks.


PTTDrogue DepthDate DeployedLatitudeLongitudeLast DateLatitudeLongitude
2250210 m29 April 199444° 16.09´N67° 22.22´W04 Nov 199439° 37.14´N71° 07.26´W
2250310 m29 April 199444° 28.13´N67° 16.76´W28 Jul 199441° 45.36´N70° 25.68´W
2250440 m29 April 199443° 56.98´N67° 29.96´W09 Jul 199441° 16.02´N68° 59.10´W
2250540 m29 April 199443° 33.45´N67° 39.95´W06 Nov 199442° 36.48´N70° 10.92´W
2250640 m29 April 199444° 16.09´N67° 22.22´W11 Sep 199443° 29.52´N68° 32.04´W