Manly Hydraulics Laboratory (MHL) part of the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage (OEH) (function now assumed by NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment (DPIE)) operates a system of Waverider buoys off the NSW coastline. The buoys measure wave height and other wave statistics such as wave period on a continuous real-time basis. Some of the buoys are also capable of measuring wave direction and sea surface temperature (discoverable in a separate collection: Manly Hydraulics Laboratory Waverider buoys - Sea surface temperature data - https://catalogue-imos.aodn.org.au:443/geonetwork/srv/api/records/81c5f192-d4af-4dfe-a660-af15ae46a22a). This metadata record is a parent record describing the MHL Waverider system as a whole. The child metadata records describe each deployment of the buoy in more detail with links to downloadable data. The data is gathered by the Waverider system developed by the Dutch company, Datawell. The Waverider system uses an accelerometer mounted in a loose tethered buoy (0.7 or 0.9m in diameter) to measure the vertical accelerations of the buoy as it moves with the water surface. The accelerations are integrated twice within the buoy and the displacement signal so obtained is then transmitted to a shore station where it is processed to provide wave data statistics. The wave data is stored on the receiving station PC before routine transfer to Manly Hydraulics Laboratory via email. The wave direction capable Waverider buoys utilise a heave-pitch-roll sensor, two fixed X and Y accelerometers and a three axis fluxgate compass to measure both vertical and horizontal motion. An on-board processor converts the buoy motion to three orthogonal (vertical, north-south, east-west) translation signals that are transmitted to the shore station.
The data originally represented by this metadata record has been reformatted and now forms part of the National Wave Archive, and is accessible from that collection - https://catalogue-imos.aodn.org.au:443/geonetwork/srv/api/records/2807f3aa-4db0-4924-b64b-354ae8c10b58. The original data has been archived (contact IMOS for access).
