Weather Stations
AIMS has operated weather stations for more than 20 years in order to collect important meteorological and oceanographic information used in its research.
The permanent weather stations monitor climatic conditions including air temperature, wind speed, wind direction and barometric pressure. They also record water temperatures at various depths and the amount of above-water photosynthetically active radiation which is relevant to coral photosynthesis.
The solar powered stations send the data back to a base station at AIMS headquarters every half hour. The data is processed, archived, quality controlled and served through the website.
The existing weather stations have been designed and built by AIMS. They will gradually be upgraded to take advantage of new sensor and communication technology. Over the next three years, there will also be an expansion of the number of sites and variables collected through implementation of the Great Barrier Reef Ocean Observing System.
