E-SurfMar

EUMETNET’s Surface Marine programme (E-SurfMar) coordinates European efforts to maintain and enhance marine surface observation networks. The key activities of E-SurfMar include (1) maintaining a drifting buoy network of more than 150 buoys across the North Atlantic and Europe; (2) supporting European moored buoy platforms; and (3) facilitating observations from voluntary observing ships. The observations gathered from buoys and ships – such as temperature, wind speed, wave height, and atmospheric pressure – provide important weather data over the oceans and seas, some of which can be ingested into weather forecast models, resulting in better forecasts.

During autumn 2025 and winter 2025/26, E-SurfMar has been working with partners to deploy around 60 drifting buoys into the atmospheric storm track region of the North Atlantic Ocean. These partners are from both Europe and North America, including the Global Drifter Program at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Critically, these buoys are equipped with barometers, providing sea-level pressure for global weather forecast models.

These new buoys and their observations are complementary to the NAWDIC field experiment in January and February 2026 and will provide a broader coverage of conventional observations across the North Atlantic and Europe. An earlier deployment of buoys in the Ionian Sea and Central Mediterranean helped to increase observation coverage there. Furthermore, these buoys support a unique opportunity this winter when multiple observational campaigns will be able to investigate whether adding extra conventional observations in the North Pacific and North Atlantic Oceans may increase weather forecast skill, both at sea and over land.

Contact: E-SurfMar or David Lavers (ECMWF)