Marine Optical BuoY (MOBY)

The Marine Optical BuoY (MOBY) is a NOAA funded project to provide vicarious calibration of ocean color satellites (SeaWiFS and MODIS) (Clark et al., 1997). MOBY is an autonomous optical buoy which is moored off the island of Lanai in Hawaii. The system was designed for measuring sunlight incident on and scattered out of the ocean. These measurements are provided in near real time for the vicarious calibration procedures conducted by ocean color scientists.

The development of MOBY began in 1985, followed by deployments of prototypes; first in Monterey Bay (1993) and then in Hawaii (1995). The operational version was tested in the fall of 1996 in Hawaii, and MOBY became operational at the Lanai site in July of 1997. MOBY collects data on a daily basis. Moss Landing Marine Marine Laboratories (MLML) was selected through a NOAA grant process to participate in the engineering and construction of the prototype and operational version of the system in 1989. Additionally, MLML has had the primary responsibility for maintaining, calibrating the buoy and data production of the system.

History

Previously the MOBY website content has been mirrored from MLML to NOAA / NESDIS / STAR and served identically from both locations. Starting in December 2024, the webpage and data content that were previously mirrored from STAR are going to be downloadable as tarred data files located here. The source website hosted at MLML will continue to be accessible in its original location.

Contact

If you have questions about this site or accessing MOBY data, please contact NOAA CoastWatch.

Note about deployments data format:

MOBY deployment data is now being shared as a single .tgz file for each deployment. Each .tgz file contains all the .html, text files, and images that were previously directly viewable as web pages. To view any specific deployment, users will need to download the relevant .tgz file and unzip it locally for viewing and reference.

MOBY data repository at STAR

• MOBY deployments data
• Gold directory index
  • Gold data directory
• Spectral data index
  • Spectral data directory
• Filtered spectral data index
  • Filtered spectral data directory
• MOBY Refresh Satellite Weighted Data - Platinum
  • Platinum data directory

Reprocessing details

• November 2017
• October 2016
• January 2005

Links

• MOBY overview at Moss Landing Marine Laboratory / San Jose State University
• MOBY website at SJSU
• CoastWatch