Tao Buoy
NOAA completed the Tropical Atmosphere Ocean (TAO) array for the detection of El Niño and La Niña in the Pacific Ocean in 1994 after 10 years of development in which NOAA deployed 400 buoys on 83 separate cruises. Today, NOAA and the Japanese government maintain 70 permanent buoys they moored along the equatorial Pacific that collect data essential to the forecasting of El Niño and La Niña.