A wave buoy and temperature-monitoring mooring deployed off Coral Coast, in Sigatoka, last Wednesday – will provide ocean researchers, forecasters, mariners, surfers, and the public with real-time information about wave conditions and ocean temperatures.

This information is critical to coastal early warning systems and to understand the impact of ocean warming on coral reefs.

The mooring is a combination of a surface wave buoy, which is a key component of the Coastal Inundation Forecasting Demonstration Project and a subsurface array of temperature sensors, which is a component of the Coastal Oceanography in the Pacific, Risk and Adaptation project.

Director Meteorology, Ravin Kumar, says the buoy is already providing them vital wave information on the ocean state off the coast of Sigatoka.

Kumar says this will greatly improve Fiji Met’s marine forecasting capability, and help them predict inundation events along the Coral Coast.

Fiji had a wave buoy that was deployed in 1991, just south of Kadavu.

Even though it was only in place for a year, the data from that one buoy is used time and time again to calibrate wave models and to verify satellite readings.