How many sensors do we have in the Earth's oceans?

Simfish

And are any of these sensors stable? What is the effective resolution that we get from these sensors?

russ_watters

Sensors of what? We have dozens (hundreds?) of weather buoys, for example, with lots of sensors on them: http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/rmd.shtml

Simfish

Oh nice. That's a really nice map.

I was thinking of sensors of pretty much everything (so we obviously know temperature from these - but I was also curious about wave height and chemical concentrations).

klimatos

As russ stated, we have hundreds of weather bouys and other countries have their own networks. In addition, the military (especially the Navy and the Coast Guard) have an unknown number of intelligence sensors--on the surface, on the bottom, and likely in between. Finally, there are highly classified sensors located in mysterious places all around the world by numerous agencies--some of which are presumed not to exist.

russ_watters

Well wave height is shown on them (precision, .1 ft) - click one: http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.php?station=42099

Not chemical concentrations, though.