World Wide Web access to real-time and historical data from the TAO array of moored buoys in the tropical Pacific Ocean: updates for 1996

The TAO array consists of approximately 70 moored buoys in the tropical Pacific Ocean, telemetering data in real time via the Argos satellite. Supported by an international consortium, it is a major component of the global climate monitoring system. TAO data is readily available via the World Wide Web, Unix/X-windows/Internet, and anonymous FTP. Available data includes real time and historical temperature and current meter data, and computed quantities, such as dynamic height, in the form of user-selectable space-time slices end line plots. Related data sets, such as TOPEX/POSEIDON data, NMC model-generated data fields, and TOGA drifting buoy data, are also available. TAO project home pages include extensive information about the buoys, sensors, sampling schemes, cruise scheduling, and science plans and publications. Updates to the TAO home pages include the addition of new animations, new views or slices of the TAO array data (such as time depth plots), additional related data, and Web access to the TAO gridding methodologies and the climatologies used in calculating TAO anomaly fields. An El Nino Theme Page links forecasts, analyses, and measurements of El Nino from research institutes world-wide as a resource for scientists, and to widen public awareness and knowledge about El Nino. Java prototypes provide the user with a high degree of interaction with TAO data and graphics. A new Web page provides near real-time images and data from the newly commissioned NOAA Research Vessel Ka'imimoana, which was designed and outfitted for deploying ATLAS buoys in support of NOAA's TAO mission. See http:// www.pmel.noaa.gov/toga-tao/home.html.