China deployed thirty Argo floats in Northwestern Pacific Ocean

        “Study of the upper ocean structure and its variation and prediction based on the global real-time observation program (Argo)”, a project from the State Key Basic Research Development Plan of the Ministry of Science and Technology, carried out by the Second Institute of Oceanography, SOA deployed 30 Argo floats from R/V Xiangyanghong 14 and a long range towboat Zhongda 31 in the northwest Pacific Ocean from July to September 2011, in which 10 are ARVOR floats made by MKE, France and 20 are APEX floats made by Webb, USA, and 10 are iridium floats and the other 20 are still using Argos system to transmit data. As of September 20, 2011, China Argo has deployed 120 floats in which 70 are active.

Fig. 1   Positions of 4 floats deployed from R/V Xiangyanghong 14

Fig. 2   Positions of 26 floats deployed from the tugboat Zhongda 31
(those in red are iridium floats; those in blue are floats using Argos communication system)