Assessment of a New Anemometry System for the Met Office’s Moored Buoy Network

Since the late 1980s the Met Office has operated a network of Marine Automatic Weather Stations (MAWS) around the United Kingdom. The network includes a number of instrumented moored buoys, which are mainly in exposed open-ocean locations. The anemometry is usually the first component to degrade or fail, often after 6-9 months at sea. Because the buoys are normally serviced on an annual basis, there is a need for a more durable mind system. This paper presents results from the initial deployments of a new anemometry system based on the Gill Wind Sonic on some of the Met Office's moored buoys, where the new wind system has been deployed alongside a conventional cup-and-vane system for comparison. The results suggest that the new wind system has shown no evidence of deterioration in its measurement accuracy, even after 8-11 months at sea. However, there is evidence of degradation in the quality of the wind data from the collocated cup-and-vane system. As a result, the new wind system will be deployed across the network to improve wind measurement reliability.