The Impact of Typhoons on the Pacific (ITOP) experiment is a multinational endeavour to study the effects of high intensity storms called “Super Typhoons” which are expected to be more frequent with climate change. It is funded by the Office of Naval Research involving University of Miami, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Environment Canada, University of Leeds, Scripps Institute of Oceanography, University of Washington, Taiwan Naval Academy and Sun Yat-Sen University of Taiwan.

As part of Environment Canada’s support to ITOP, Joe Gabriele and Cary Smith of Engineering Services, from Emergencies, Operational Analytical Laboratories and Research Support Division, travelled to Taiwan for the integration and deployment of two tandem buoy moorings from the Scripps research vessel R/V Revelle. Each mooring consists of two buoys, a 6-metre Nomad EASI (Extreme Air Sea Interaction) buoy instrumented with a suite of atmospheric sensors and an ASIS (Air Sea Interaction Spar) buoy designed to measure wave height, water velocity and other water and atmospheric parameters. All four buoys use custom data acquisition loggers designed and built by Joe Gabriele, each recording 32 channels of 20 Hz data. Summary and housekeeping data are transmitted via satellite on a regular basis to monitor the progress of the data collection. Both moorings are approximately 400 nautical miles east of Taiwan in 5600 metres of water and are scheduled for retrieval in November 2010.

A brief overview of the project can be found on Science Daily News.

Contact: Joe Gabriele, (905) 336-4749, Water Science and Technology Directorate