Weather buoy tropical Pacific Ocean helped study the El Niño-Southern Oscillation. Moored weather buoys range from in diameter, while drifting buoys are smaller, with diameters of . Drifting buoys are the dominant form of weather buoy in sheer number, with 1250 located worldwide. Wind data from buoys has smaller error than that from ships. There are differences in the values of sea surface temperature measurements between the two platforms as well, relating to the depth of the measurement and whether or not the water is heated by the ship which measures the quantity. The first known proposal for surface weather observations at
Climate change in the United States fundamental problem exists in that records for those such events are of worse quality with poorer details than temperature and rainfall records. A comprehensive article in "Geophysical Research Letters" in 2006 found "no significant change in global net tropical cyclone activity" during past decades, a period when considerable warming of ocean water temperatures occurred. Significant regional trends exist such as a general rise of activity in the North Atlantic area besides the U.S. eastern coast. Looking at the lack of certainty as to the causes of the 1995 to present increase in Atlantic extreme storm activity, a 2007 article in