MOSAIC ACCESS TO REAL-TIME DATA FROM THE TOGA-TAO ARRAY OF MOORED BUOYS

The TAO Array is a major component of the global climate monitoring system, consisting of approximately 70 moored buoys, spanning the Equatorial Pacific Ocean from 95W in the eastern Pacific to 137E in the west, and telemetering atmospheric and oceanographic data in real time to shore-based computers via the NOAA. Argos satellite system. The TAO array allows, for the first time, observationally coherent basin-wide fields of wind and upper ocean thermal and current structure to be constructed in real time for assimilation into numerical models and for diagnostic studies. The TAO array is supported by an international consortium, involving cooperation between the United States, France, Japan, Korea and Taiwan. Real-time data from the TOGA-TAO Array of moored buoys is being made available through a Mosaic interface designed by the TAO Project office at NOAA's Pacific Marine Environment Laboratory, in Seattle, Washington. At present, displays include latitude-time plots, longitude-time plots and latitude-longitude plots of surface variables, and are being expanded to include additional views of the four-dimensional data set from this array of buoys, including animations of the buoy data and comparisions of the buoy data with operational analyses model data from the National Meteorological Center.