Data Buoy Cooperation Panel

The Data Buoy Cooperation Panel (DBCP) is an international body which coordinates drifting and moored buoy programs worldwide. Its main purpose is to increase the number of buoys deployed and the amount of good-quality oceanic and atmospheric data available for the international community. Most of the buoys report through the Argos system.

Figure 1: Data Buoy Cooperation Panel Action Groups

The DBCP is an official joint body of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC). It was formally established in 1985, and will be integrated in the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS). The current DBCP chairman is Graeme Brough, in charge of instrument engineering at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) in Melbourne.

DBCP achievements include:

• Implementation of a dedicated sub-system at the U.S. and French Argos centers for data processing and insertion of Argos data onto the Global Telecommunication System (GTS)
• Implementation of Quality Control Guidelines for GTS buoy data
• Participation, with the Surface Velocity Programme, in the design of a new low-cost meteorological/oceanographic barometer Lagrangian drifter
• Assistance in the establishment of international programs such as the International Arctic Buoy Programme (IABP)
• Provision of a GTS dataflow monitoring tool via the DBCP website

Keeping the international community up with the news

Our website provides information on buoy-related technical developments, publications, meetings, and so on. This includes reports from its action groups:

• European Group on Ocean Stations (EGOS)
• International Arctic Buoy Programme (IABP)
• International Programme for Antarctic Buoys (IPAB)
• International South Atlantic Buoy Programme (ISABP)
• International Buoy Programme for the Indian Ocean (IBPIO)
• Global Drifter Programme (GDP)

[The Tropical Atmosphere Ocean (TAO) array Implementation Panel (TIP) is due to join the DBCP as an action group in 1998.]

Regularly updated information and data products

A lot of data on the site is regularly updated, such as archived quality control messages and the status of buoys transmitting data onto the GTS. Some is in graphical form, e.g. trend in number of wind speed observations over time. Similarly, in the section on GTS distribution, you can consult data products from the Drifting Buoy Data Assembly Center (DAC, Miami, USA) such as global Lagrangian drifter population maps, or annual mean velocity estimates by region or period.

The DBCP website also gives access to data from the Canadian Marine Environmental Data Service (MEDS) and Météo-France, by FTP, using interactive forms. We now expect to add interactive access to U.S. National Weather Service (NWS) data.

Our thanks to NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratories (AOML, USA) for hosting the DBCP website.