THE NORTH PACIFIC DATA BUOY ADVISORY PANEL: AN INITIATIVE OF PICES AND THE DATA BUOY CO-OPERATION PANEL

Ron McLaren and Brian O’Donnell

Meteorological Service of Canada, Pacific & Yukon Region, Environment Canada, Suite 200-1200 W. 73rd. Avenue, Vancouver, BC, V6P 6H9, Canada Ron.Mclaren@ec.gc.ca

Established in 1985, the Data Buoy Co-operation Panel, (DBCP) is an official joint body of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC). The Panel consists of representatives of members of the WMO or member states of the IOC interested in participating in its activities. The most important task of the DBCP is to co-ordinate drifting and moored buoy programmes at the international level, with a view to increase the number of buoys deployed and maintain high quality archived and real time oceanic and atmospheric data.

PICES, the North Pacific Marine Science Organization, is an intergovernmental scientific organization that was established and held its first meetings in 1992. Its present members are Canada, People's Republic of China, Japan, Republic of Korea, Russian Federation, and the United States of America. The goals of PICES are to promote and co-ordinate marine research in the northern North Pacific and adjacent seas especially northward of 30 degrees North, advance scientific knowledge about the ocean environment, global weather and climate change, living resources and their ecosystems, and the impacts of human activities and to promote the collection and rapid exchange of scientific information on these issues

The North Pacific has earned the dubious reputation of being the "Pacific data Void", particularly in the case of real time data availability. With the natural synergy of the goals of the two groups, DBCP and PICES, it seemed a logical step to combine efforts to further the aims of both organizations. The North Pacific Data Buoy Advisory Panel was formed within PICES in the fall of 2001 and the first meeting of the group was held in Victoria, June 5 & 6, 2002. The electronic poster presentation describes the formation of the Panel and the accomplishments over the past year since its inception at PICES X.