RDSEA Awarded New Contract with the NOAA

RDSEA has recently been granted a new contract with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for year 2012 for continued support of the “Global Tropical Moored Buoy Array” (GTMBA) on the RAMA Program, in the Indian Ocean. RDSEA’s foundation was laid in the early 1980’s when company Founder and President Rick Cole was employed at the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL), Seattle, WA and was involved in the early implementation of the initial TOGA array (Rick’s efforts actually date back to the EPOCS program of the late 1970s). The GTMBA is a multi-national effort to provide data in real-time for climate research and forecasting. Major components include the TAO/TRITON array in the Pacific, PIRATA in the Atlantic, and RAMA in the Indian Ocean. The major focus of this array is:

• El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) in the Pacific
• The inter-hemispheric dipole mode, equatorial warm events, and hurricane activity in the Atlantic
• The monsoons, the Indian Ocean Dipole, and intra-seasonal variability in the Indian Ocean

Development of the Tropical Atmosphere Ocean (TAO) array of moored buoys in the tropical Pacific was motivated by the 1982-1983 El Nino event and developed by the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL) under NOAA's Equatorial Pacific Ocean Climate Studies (EPOCS) program. The array has been extended to the west and into the Indian Ocean with the deployment of the Triton array implemented by the Japan Marine Science and Technology Center (JAMSTEC). The TAO and TRITON arrays combined in January 2000 to recognize the introduction of TRITON buoys in the western Pacific by JAMSTEC. The Atlantic array, PIRATA, is a joint project of France (ORSTOM), Brazil (INPE and DHN), and the USA (PMEL/NOAA).