MAPCO2 Buoy: Ala Wai, Oahu, Hawaii

This buoy operated between June 5, 2008 and February 17, 2021 and was located approximately 300 m (1000 ft) offshore of Magic Island near the mouth of the Ala Wai Canal between Ala Moana Beach Park and Waikiki on the South Shore of Oahu in the State of Hawaii. It was moored in waters 7.5 m (25 ft) deep. Data were recorded every 3 hours and transmitted daily. This Moored Autonomous Partial Pressure of Carbon Dioxide (MAPCO2) buoy was primarily established to monitor ocean acidification, complementing a national array of moored carbon dioxide buoys across the Pacific, Atlantic, and Caribbean. Other important physical parameters were also monitored, including water temperature, salinity, turbidity, chlorophyll, and air pressure. Water quality measurements help provide early indications of potentially polluted run-off from storm drainage, sewage spills, and soil erosion from land-based waterways such as streams and other outflows that lead directly into the ocean. The buoy was primarily funded by NOAA's Ocean Acidification Program and supported by NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL). The University of Hawaii at Manoa supported the maintenance of the buoy and instrumentation. Data are managed by PMEL at the NOAA Western Regional Center in Seattle, Washington. PMEL enables data streaming into the PacIOOS website for visualization purposes only: the near real-time data have not been post-calibrated or quality controlled and are therefore not of the climate quality that PMEL is required to achieve. Only post-calibrated and quality-controlled data should be used for scientific publications and are available for download separately at the NOAA Ocean Carbon Data System (OCADS) website in a delayed-mode capacity.