The world's southernmost open ocean moored wave buoy deployed

The buoy will provide essential data about waves in the rarely studied southern ocean. plot shows wave height in metres; the red dot marks the wave buoy location.

In collaboration with MetOcean Solutions, the New Zealand Defence Force yesterday launched a moored wave buoy about 11 km south of Campbell Island. The site is the southernmost location that a wave buoy has ever been moored in the world.

Deployed from the HMNZS OTAGO, the buoy is part of a collaborative project between the Defence Technology Agency and MetOcean Solutions. The buoy is planned to remain in location for the next six months, where it will be used to gather precise wave spectral data as well as
wave height and wave direction.

"We are very pleased about our research partnership with the Defence," says oceanographer Dr Peter McComb who led the deployment on OTAGO. "The Southern Ocean is an incredible engine for wave energy generation due to the persistent westerly winds and the expansive ocean fetch. This makes it a difficult region to work in, but we were fortunate with a period of relatively good weather to launch the buoy. The data will be of international significance and the wave research community will benefit from open access to the measurements."

Dr Tom Durrant, the manager of MetOcean Solutions' wave modelling, says that the buoy will provide invaluable data for an area which remains poorly studied. 

"Due to the harsh ocean environment and remote location, the Southern Ocean is the least observed of any ocean body," he explains. "The wave buoy data will aid our understanding of waves in extreme conditions, and provide measurements against which we can validate and improve our global wave models. To help the deployment we provided detailed forecasts, and we are relieved that the conditions were calm enough to launch the buoy."

For more about the deployment, see the DTA website