The No.2 Oceanographic Institute of the National Bureau of Oceanography announced Saturday in Hangzhou that China had successfully deployed its first three ARGO satellite-tracked floats in the northwestern Pacific to collect oceanic data.
At a seminar here in east China's Zhejiang province on the ARGO (array for real-time geostrophic oceanography) experiment, Yu Jianping, a research fellow with the institute said the floats were launched on October 20, 21 and 25.
According to the data the instruments collected, they were working normally, said Yu.
Early this year, China decided to join the ARGO global ocean monitoring plan, launched by aerologists and oceanographers from the United States and other nations in 1998 to improve the accuracy of weather forecasts, especially hurricanes, typhoons, floods, droughts and other disastrous weather conditions.
Under the ARGO plan, scientists will deploy 3,000 floats throughout the four oceans to collect temperatures, salinity and other oceanic data.
China is expected to deploy another 13 floats in the next two years.
(People's Daily November 18, 2002)
