What is PIRATA?
The Pilot Research Moored Array in the Tropical Atlantic (PIRATA) is an in situ observation array of moored buoys designed to monitor a set of atmospheric and oceanographic variables of the ocean-atmosphere interface processes at the tropical Atlantic ocean.
The PIRATA project is a multinational cooperation program with participation of Brazil, France, and the United States. These three countries shared the tasks of implementation and maintenance of the array.
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Operational details
All data are collected and internally recorded at 10-min intervals. Daily averages and some spot 10-min samples are telemetered to shore via Service Argos. A subset of the data is retransmitted to GTS.
The high resolution 10-min data sets are retrieved during the annual maintenance operations.
The moorings used in the PIRATA array are primarily ATLAS moorings like those used in the equatorial Pacific as part of the TAO Array. The array was composed by 12 ATLAS systems during its pilot phase (1997-2000) and by 10 systems during its consolidation phase which ends in 2005/2006.
The variables measured are surface winds, sea surface temperature, sea surface conductivity (salinity), air temperature, relative humidity, incoming shortwave radiation, rainfall, subsurface temperature (10 depths in the upper 500 m), subsurface conductivity (three depths in the upper 500 m), and subsurface pressure (at 300 and 500 m).
Projects
The monitoring activities in the South Atlantic are performed by the following projects: