Abstract:
During May and June 2000, an intercomparison was made of buoy meteorological
systems from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), the National Oceanographic
and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL),
and the Japanese Marine Science and Technology Center (JAMSTEC). Two WHOI systems
mounted on a 3 m discus buoy, two PMEL systems mounted on separate buoy tower tops and
one JAMSTEC system mounted on a wooden platform were lined parallel to, and 25 m from
Nantucket Sound in Massachusetts. All systems used R. M. Young propeller anemometers,
Rotronic relative humidity and air temperature sensors and Eppley short-wave radiation sensors.
The PMEL and WHOI systems used R. M.Young self-siphoning rain gauges, while the
JAMSTEC system used a Scientific Technology ORG-115 optical rain gauge. The PMEL and
WHOI systems included an Eppley PIR long-wave sensor, while the JAMSTEC had no longwave
sensor. The WHOI system used an AIR DB-1A barometric pressure sensor. PMEL and
JAMSTEC systems used Paroscientific Digiquartz sensors. The Geophysical Instruments and
Measurements Group (GIM) from Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) installed two
Portable Radiation Package (PRP) systems that include Eppley short-wave and long-wave
sensors on a platform near the site.
It was apparent from the data that for most of the sensors, the correlation between data
sets was better than the absolute agreement between them. The conclusions made were that the
sensors and associated electronics from the three different laboratories performed comparably.
