Key Climate Mooring Off the Coast of Japan Successfully Recovered
The surface mooring at the Kuroshio Extension Observatory (KEO), which broke away from its anchor on May 19, was recovered on July 21 by the Japanese charter ship, Kaiyo. Despite being caught in eddies and an ocean jet, the drifting KEO buoy, its sensor suite and nearly 8 kilometers of mooring line was recovered. Due to travel restrictions associated with COVID19, there were no NOAA personnel onboard the Kaiyo for this rescue.
The KEO mooring (green circle) shown on a map of surface currents with eddies mixing along the Kuroshio Extension Current which carries warm water at nearly 140 million cubic meters per second eastward into the North Pacific.
